«».      -^ 

MANIACS 

BY 

LLOYD 
OS BOURNE 


By 
LLOYD  OSBOURNE 

Author  of 

The  Queen  versus  Billy,  Love  the 

Fiddler,  and,  with  Robert  Louis  Stevenson, 

The  Wrong  Box,  The  Wrecker, 

The  Ebb  Tide 


NEW  YORK 

THE  NEW  YORK  BOOK  CO. 
1913 


COPYRIGHT  1905 
THE  BOBBS-MERRILL  COMPANY 

APRIL 


THE  MOTORMANIACS 

"  It's  jolly  to  get  you  off  by  yourself,"  I 
said  as  we  wandered  away  from  the  rest  of 
the  party. 

"  Then  you  are  not  afraid  of  an  engaged 
girl,"  she  observed.  "  Everybody  else  seems 
to  be." 

"  I  am  made  of  sterner  stuff,"  I  said. 
"  Besides,  I  am  dying  to  know  all  about  it." 

"All  about  what?" 

"  What  you  found  to  like  in  Gerard  Mal- 
colm, and  what  Gerard  Malcolm  found  to  like 
in  you,  and  what  he  said  and  what  you  said 
and  what  the  Englishman  said,  and  how  it  all 
happened  generally." 

"  What  you  want  to  know  would  fill  a 
book." 

"  You  speak  as  if  you  mean  it  to  be  a 
sealed  one." 

1 


2137533 


THE     MOTOEM ANIACS 

"  I  don't  see  exactly  what  claim  you  have 
to  be  a  reader." 

"  Well,  I  was  the  first  person  to  love  you," 
I  said.  "  Surely  that  ought  to  count  for 
something.  It  didn't  last  long,  I  know,  but 
it  was  a  wild  business  while  it  did.  When  I 
discovered  you  were  just  out  for  scalps  — 

"  And  when  I  discovered  you  were  the 
most  conceited,  monopolizing,  jealous,  trou- 
blesome and  exacting  man  that  ever  lived, 
and  that  I  was  expected  to  play  kitten  while 
you  did  demon  child  —  " 

"  Oh,  of  course,  it  was  a  mistake,"  I  said 
quickly.  "  The  illusion  couldn't  be  kept  up 
on  either  side.  We  only  really  got  chummy 
after  we  called  it  off." 

"  The  trouble  was  that  we  were  both  scalp- 
ers, and  when  we  decided  to  let  each  other 
alone  —  in  that  way,  I  mean  —  we  built  up 
a  pleasant  professional  acquaintance  on  the 
ashes  of  the  dead  fires." 

"  Can't  you  make  it  a  little  warmer  than 
acquaintance  ?  "  I  protested. 

"  It  was  a  real  fellow  feeling  —  whatever 


THE     MOT ORM ANI ACS 

you  choose  to  call  it,"  she  conceded.  "  You 
wanted  to  talk  about  yourself,  and  I  wanted 
to  talk  about  myself,  and  without  any  self- 
flattery  I  think  I  can  say  we  found  each  other 
very  responsive." 

"  I've  rather  a  memory  that  you  got  the 
best  of  the  bargain." 

"  There  were  hours  and  hours  when  I 
couldn't  get  a  word  in  edgewise." 

"  And  there  were  whole  days  and  days  — " 
I  began. 

"  Now,  don't  let's  work  up  a  fuss,"  she 
said  sweetly.  "  We  won't  have  so  many  more 
talks  together,  and  anyway  it  isn't  profes- 
sional etiquette  for  us  to  fight." 

"  Who  wants  to  fight  ?  "  I  said.  "  I  never 
was  that  kind  of  Indian." 

•"  Then  let's  begin  where  we  left  off." 

"  It  used  to  be  all  Harry  Clayton  then," 
I  remarked. 

"  Was  it  as  long  ago  as  that  ?  "  she  asked. 
"  Oh,  dear,  how  time  passes !  " 

"  He  joined  the  great  majority,  I  heard." 

"  Oh,  yes,  he's  married,"  she  said.     "  He 

3 


THE     MOTORMANIACS 

wasn't  any  good  at  all.  What  can  you  do 
with  a  person  who  has  scalps  to  burn  ?  " 

"  That  kind  of  thing  discourages  an  In- 
dian," I  remarked. 

"  It  robs  the  thing  of  all  its  zip,  but  I  sup- 
pose there's  a  Harry  Clayton  kind  of  girl, 
too." 

"  The  woods  are  full  of  them." 

"  I  am  almost  glad  I've  decided  to  bury  the 
tomahawk." 

"  And  leave  me  the  last  of  the  noble  race  ?  " 

"  You'll  have  to  whoop  alone." 

"  I'll  often  think  of  you  in  your  log  cabin 
with  the  white  man,"  I  said.  "  On  winter 
nights  I'll  flatten  my  nose  against  the  win- 
dow-pane and  have  a  little  peek  in ;  next  day 
you'll  recognize  my  footsteps  in  the  snow." 

"  I'd  be  sure  to  know  them  by  their  size." 

"  I'm  going  to  take  ten  dollars  off  your 
wedding  present  for  that." 

"  It  was  one  of  our  rules  we  could  say  any- 
thing we  liked." 

"  It  was  a  life  of  savage  freedom.  It 
takes  one  a  little  time  to  get  into  it  again." 

4 


THE     MOTOEMANIACS 

"  You  used  to  say  things,  too." 

"  I  can't  remember  saying  anything  as 
horrid  as  that." 

"  Well,  you  couldn't,  you  know,"  she  said, 
and  put  out  the  tip  of  a  little  slipper. 

"  I  thought  all  the  while  it  was  to  be  Cap- 
tain Cartwright  —  that  Englishman  with 
the  eye-glass." 

"  I  thought  so,  too." 

"  I  read  of  the  engagement  in  the  papers, 
and  I  can  not  recollect  that  it  was  ever  contra- 
dicted or  anything." 

"  Oh,  it  wasn't,"  she  said.  "  At  least,  not 
till  later  —  lots  later." 

"  I  suppose  I  ought  to  hurriedly  talk  about 
something  else,"  I  remarked. 

"  You  needn't  feel  like  that  at  all,"  she  re- 
turned. "  The  captain  and  I  are  very  good 
friends  —  only  he  doesn't  play  in  my  yard 
any  more." 

"  I  can't  remember  Gerard  Malcolm  very 
well,"  I  went  on.  "  Wasn't  he  rather  tall 
and  thin,  with  a  big  nose  and  a  hidden-away 
sister  who  was  supposed  to  be  an  invalid  ?  " 

5 


THE     MOTORMANIACS 

"  That's  one  way  of  describing  him." 

"  I'd  rather  like  to  hear  yours." 

"  Oh,  I'm  quite  silly  about  him." 

"  That  must  have  happened  later,"  I  said. 
"  It  certainly  didn't  show  at  the  time." 

"  Everything  must  have  a  beginning,  you 
know." 

"  That's  what  I  want  to  get  at, —  what 
made  you  get  a  transfer  from  the  captain  ?  " 

"  It  all  happened  through  an  automobile," 
she  said. 

"  Oh,  an  automobile !  "  I  exclaimed. 

"  It  was  an  awfully  up-to-date  affair  alto- 
gether!" 

"  I  suppose  it  ran  away  and  he  caught  it  by 
the  bridle  at  the  risk  of  his  life?  " 

"  No,  he  didn't  stop  it,"  she  said.  "  He 
made  it  go." 

"  It  isn't  everybody  can  do  that  with  an 
automobile." 

"  You  ought  to  have  seen  the  poor  captain 
turn  the  crank ! "  she  exclaimed,  with  a  little 
laugh  of  recollection. 

"So  the  captain  was  there,  too?"  I  said. 

6 


THE     MOTORMANIACS 

"  He  never  struck  me  as  the  kind  of  man 
that  could  make  anything  go,  exactly." 

"  Oh,  he  didn't,"  she  said. 

"  I  am  surprised  that  he  even  tried." 

"  But  Gerard  is  a  perfectly  beautiful  me- 
chanic. You  ought  to  see  how  respectful 
they  are  to  him  at  the  garage  —  especially 
when  there's  a  French  car  in  trouble." 

"  They  are  respectful  to  me,  too." 

"  That's  only  because  you're  rich,"  she 
returned. 

"  I  own  a  French  car  and  drive  it  myself," 
I  said,  "  and  —  but  I  see  there's  no  use  of 
my  saying  anything." 

"  It's  genius  with  Gerard,"  she  said.  "  It 
makes  one  solemn  to  think  how  much  he 
knows  about  gas  engines." 

"  So  that's  how  he  did  it ! "  I  observed. 
"  Different  men  have  different  ways  to 
charm,  I  suppose.  I  don't  remember  that 
looks  were  his  long  suit." 

"  If  you  were  a  woman,  that  would  be 
called  catty." 

"  Oh,  I  don't  want  to  detract  from  him," 

7 


THE     MOTOBM ANIACS 

I  said.     "  He  used  to  dance  with  wall-flowers 
and  they  said  he  was  an  angel  to  his  sister." 

"  It    was    that    sister    who    was    the    real 
trouble,"  she  said  meditatively. 

"  What  had  she  to  do  with  it?  "  I  asked. 
"Oh,  just  being  there  —  being  his  sister 
—  being  an  invalid,  you  know." 
"  No,  I  don't  know,  at  all." 
"  The  trouble  is,  I'm  telling  you  the  end 
of  the  story  first." 

"  Let's  start  at  the  very  beginning." 
"  In  real  life  beginnings  and  middles  and 
ends  of  things  are  all  so  jumbled  up." 

"  When  I  went  away,"  I  said,  "  everybody 
thought  it  was  Harry  Clayton,  with  the  Eng- 
lishman as  a  strong  second,  and  there  wasn't 
any  Malcolm  about  it." 

"  Do  you  remember  the  flurry  in  Great 
Westerns  ?  "  she  asked. 

"  That's  surely  the  beginning  of  something 
else,"  I  remarked. 

"  No,  it's  the  beginning  of  this." 
"  I've  a  faint  memory  they  jumped  up  to 
something  tremendous,  didn't  they  ?  " 

8 


THE     MOTORMANIACS 

"  It  was  the  biggest  thing  of  its  kind  ever 
seen  on  Wall  Street." 

"  Wall  Street !  "  I  exclaimed.  "  The  voice 
is  Jess  Hardy's,  but  —  " 

"  Well,  you  can't  buy  a  Manton  car  with- 
out a  little  trouble." 

"  Or  twenty-five  hundred  dollars  in  a  certi- 
fied check." 

"  It's  nearer  three  thousand,  with  acetylene 
lamps,  top,  baskets,  extra  tires,  French  toot- 
er,  freight,  insurance,  extra  tools  and  a 
leather  coat." 

"  You've  got  the  thing  down  fine,"  I  said. 
"  You  speak  like  a  folder." 

"  Well,  I  didn't  have  any  three  thousand 
dollars,"  she  continued,  undisturbed ;  "  all  I 
had  was  an  allowance  of  a  hundred  a  month, 
a  grand  piano,  a  horse  (you  remember  my 
blood  mare,  Gee-whizz?)  a  lot  of  posters,  and 
a  father." 

"  He  seems  to  me  the  biggest  asset  of  the 
lot,"  I  observed. 

"  I  thought  so,  too,  till  I  tried  him,"  she 
said.  "  He  had  the  automobile  fever,  too  — • 

9 


THE     MOTOR MANIACS 

only  the  negative  kind  —  wanted  to  shoot 
them  with  a  gun." 

"  Surely  it's  dangerous  enough  already, 
without  adding  that." 

"  For  a  time  I  didn't  know  what  to  do," 
she  went  on.  "  I  thought  I'd  have  to  try  the 
stage,  or  write  one  of  those  Marie  Bashkirt- 
seff  books  that  shock  people  into  buying  them 
by  thousands  —  and  whenever  I  saw  a  Man- 
ton  on  the  road  my  eyes  would  almost  pop  out 
of  my  head.  Then,  when  I  was  almost  des- 
perate, Mr.  Collenquest  came  on  a  visit  to 
papa." 

"  I  see  now  why  you  said  Wall  Street,"  I 
remarked. 

"  Mr.  Collenquest  is  an  old  friend  of  pa- 
pa's," she  continued.  "  They  were  at  the 
same  college,  and  both  belonged  to  what  they 
call  *  the  wonderful  old  class  of  seventy-nine,' 
and  there's  nothing  in  the  world  papa 
wouldn't  do  for  Mr.  Collenquest  or  Mr.  Col- 
lenquest for  papa.  I  had  never  seen  him 
before  and  had  rather  a  wild  idea  of  him  from 
the  caricatures  in  the  paper  —  you  know  the 

10 


THE     MOTOEMANIACS 

kind  —  with  dollar-signs  all  over  his  clothes 
and  one  of  his  feet  on  the  neck  of  Honest  Toil. 
Well,  he  wasn't  like  that  a  bit  —  in  fact,  he 
was  more  like  a  bishop  than  anything  else  — 
and  the  only  thing  he  ever  put  his  foot  on  was 
a  chair  when  he  and  papa  would  sit  up  half 
the  night  talking  about  the  wonderful  old 
class  of  seventy-nine.  Papa  is  rather  a  quiet 
man  ordinarily,  but  that  week  it  seemed  as 
though  he'd  never  stop  laughing;  and  I'd 
wake  up  at  one  o'clock  in  the  morning  and 
hear  them  still  at  it.  Of  course,  they  had 
long  serious  talks,  too,  and  Mr.  Collenquest 
was  never  so  like  a  bishop  as  when  the  con- 
versation turned  on  stocks  and  Wall  Street. 
When  he  boomed  out  things  like  *  the  increas- 
ing tendency  of  associated  capital  in  this 
country,'  or  *  the  admitted  financial  emanci- 
pation of  the  Middle  West,'  —  you  felt 
somehow  you  were  a  better  girl  for  having 
listened  to  him.  What  he  seemed  to  like  best 
—  besides  sitting  up  all  night  till  papa  was 
a  wreck  —  was  to  take  walks.  He  was  as 
bad  about  horses  as  papa  was  about  automo- 

11 


THE     MOTOBMANIACS 

biles  —  and  of  course  papa  had  to  go,  too  — 
and  naturally  I  tagged  after  them  both  — 
and  so  we  walked  and  walked  and  walked. 

"  Well,  one  day  they  were  talking  about  in- 
vestments, and  stocks,  and  how  cheap  money 
was,  and  how  hard  it  was  to  know  what  to  do 
with  it,  and  I  was  picking  wild-flowers  and 
wondering  whether  I'd  have  my  Manton  red, 
or  green  with  gilt  stripes,  when  I  heard  some- 
thing that  brought  me  up  like  an  explosion  in 
the  muffler. 

"  '  I  know  you  are  pretty  well  fixed,  Fred,' 
said  Mr.  Collenquest,  *  but  I  never  knew  a 
man  yet  who  couldn't  do  with  forty  or  fifty 
thousand  more.' 

"  *  I  don't  care  to  get  it  that  way,  Bill,'  said 
my  father. 

"  '  I  tell  you  Great  Western  is  going  to 
reach  six  hundred  and  fifty,'  said  Mr.  Collen- 
quest. 

"  I  picked  daisies  fast,  but  if  there  ever 
was  a  girl  all  ears,  it  was  I. 

"  *  I  am  giving  you  a  bit  of  inside  informa- 
tion that's  worth  millions  of  dollars,'  said  Mr. 

12 


THE     MOTOBM ANIACS 

Collenquest  in  that  solemn  tone  that  always 
gave  me  the  better-girl  feeling. 

"  '  My  dear  old  chap,'  said  papa,  '  I  don't 
want  you  to  believe  I  am  not  grateful  for  this 
sort  of  proof  of  your  friendship;  and  you 
mustn't  think,  because  I  have  strong  convic- 
tions, that  I  arrogate  any  superior  virtue  to 
myself.  Every  man  must  be  a  law  to  him- 
self. I  have  never  speculated  and  I  never 
will.' 

"  Mr.  Collenquest  heaved  a  regular  bishop's 
sigh,  and  stopped  and  put  one  foot  on  a  log 
as  though  it  was  a  toiler. 

"  '  This  isn't  speculation,  Fred,'  he  said. 
*  This  is  a  fact,  because  I  happen  to  be  rig- 
ging the  market  myself.' 

" '  I  don't  care  to  do  it,'  said  my  father, 
as  firmly  as  before. 

"  *  If  it's  just  being  a  little  short  of  reader 
money,'  said  Mr.  Collenquest,  'well  —  my 
purse  is  yours,  you  know  —  from  one  figure 
to  six.' 

"  My  father  only  shook  his  head. 

" '  I  said  fifty  thousand,'  said  Mr.  Collen- 

13 


THE     MOTOEMANIACS 

quest,  '  but  there  is  nothing  to  prevent  your 
adding  another  naught  to  it.' 

"  '  It's  speculating,'  said  my  father. 

"  *  Well,  I'm  sorry,'  said  Mr  Collenquest. 
'  I'm  getting  pretty  far  into  the  forties  now, 
Fred,  and  I  don't  think  the  world  holds  any- 
thing dearer  to  me  than  a  few  old  friends  like 
yourself.'  He  put  out  his  hand  as  he  spoke, 
and  papa  took  it.  It  was  awfully  affecting. 
I  looked  as  girly-girly  as  I  could,  lest  they 
should  catch  me  listening,  and  picked  daisies 
harder  than  ever. 

"  '  Of  course,  this  is  sacredly  confidential,' 
said  Mr.  Collenquest,  '  but  I  know  you'll  let 
it  go  no  farther,  Fred.' 

"  '  My  word  on  that,'  said  my  father  in  his 
grand,  gentleman-of-the-old-school  way. 

"  Then  they  started  to  walk  again,  and 
though  I  felt  a  little  sneak  right  down  to  my 
shoes,  I  listened  and  listened  for  anything 
more.  But  they  wandered  off  into  the 
Pressed  Steel  Car  Company,  till  it  got  so  tire- 
some I  ached  all  over. 

"That   night  I  didn't  do  anything,  be- 

14. 


THE     MOTORMANIACS 

cause  I  wanted  to  think  it  over ;  but  the  next 
morning  I  went  to  papa  and  asked  him  point- 
blank  if  I  might  sell  Gee-whizz  if  I  wanted 
to.  He  looked  very  grave,  and  talked  a  lot 
about  what  a  good  horse  Gee-whizz  was,  and 
how  hard  I'd  find  it  to  replace  her.  But  it 
was  one  of  papa's  rules  that  there  shouldn't 
be  any  strings  to  his  presents  to  me  —  that's 
the  comfort  of  having  a  thoroughbred  for 
your  father,  you  know  —  and  ever  since  I 
was  a  little  child  he  had  always  told  me  what 
was  mine  was  mine  to  do  just  what  I  liked 
with.  He's  the  whitest  father  a  girl  ever  had. 
But  he  spoke  to  me  beautifully  in  a  sort  of 
man-to-man  way,  and  was  perfectly  splendid 
in  not  asking  any  questions.  If  he  hadn't 
been  such  a  bubble-hater,  I'd  have  thrown  my 
arms  round  his  neck  and  told  him  everything. 
So  I  let  it  go  at  promising  him  the  refusal  of 
the  mare  in  case  I  decided  to  sell  her. 

"  Then  I  kited  after  Mr.  Collenquest,  whom 
I  found  in  a  hammock,  reading  a  basketful  of 
telegrams. 

" *  Oh,  don't  get  up,'  I  said  (because  he 

2  15 


was  always  a  most  punctilious  old  fellow). 
'  The  fact  is,  I  just  wanted  to  have  a  little 
business  talk  with  you.' 

"  *  Oh,  a  business  talk,'  he  said,  in  a  be- 
nice-to-the-child  tone. 

"  '  Yes,'  I  said,  '  I  thought  I  might  per- 
haps take  a  little  flyer  in  Great  Westerns.' 

"  You  ought  to  have  seen  him  leap  out  of 
that  hammock.  I  quaked  all  over,  like  Hon- 
est Labor  in  the  pictures. 

"  He  smothered  an  awful  bad  swear  and 
turned  as  pale  as  a  white  Panhard. 

"  '  Little  girl,'  he  said,  '  you've  been  listen- 
ing to  things  you  had  no  right  to  hear.' 

" '  I  didn't  mean  to  listen,'  I  said. 
*  Really  and  truly,  Mr.  Collenquest,  I 
didn't—' 

"  (  You  were  forty  feet  away  picking  wild- 
flowers,'  he  said. 

"  *  You  didn't  realize  how  badly  I  wanted 
a  Manton,'  I  said. 

"  *  A  Manton ! '  he  cried  out.  *  What  in 
heaven's  name  is  a  Manton  ? ' 

"  It's  awful  to  think  how  little  some  peo- 

16 


THE     MOTOEMANIACS 

pie  know !  I'm  sure  he  thought  it  was  some- 
thing to  wear. 

"  I  explained  to  him  what  a  Manton  is. 

"  '  And  so  you  must  have  a  Manton,'  he 
said. 

"  '  Did  you  ever  want  anything  so  bad  that 
it  kept  you  awake  at  night  ? '  I  asked  him. 

"  He  looked  at  me  a  long  time  without  say- 
ing a  word.  He  was  one  of  the  kings  of  Wall 
Street  and  I  was  only  a  five-foot-three  girl, 
and  I  felt  such  a  little  cad  when  I  saw  his 
hands  were  trembling. 

"  '  Jess,'  he  said,  *  if  you  chose  to  do  it  you 
could  half  ruin  me.  You  could  shake  some  of 
the  biggest  houses  in  New  York;  you  could 
drive  the  Forty-fourth  National  Bank  into 
the  hands  of  a  receiver.  You  could  start  a 
financial  earthquake.' 

"  And  he  looked  at  me  again  a  long  time. 

"  '  The  point  is,'  he  began  once  more,  *  are 
you  strong  enough  to  keep  such  a  secret? 
Have  you  the  character  to  do  it  —  the  grit  — 
the  determination  ? ' 

"  '  Just  watch  me ! '  I  said. 

17 


THE     MOTOBM ANI ACS 

"  I  thought  it  was  a  good  sign  that  he 
amiled. 

"  *  Just  keep  this  to  yourself  for  one 
month,'  he  said,  *  and  I'll  send  you  the  big- 
gest, the  reddest,  the  most  dangerous,  noisy, 
horse-frightening,  man-destroying,  high- 
stepping,  high-smelling  —  what  do  you  call 
it  —  Manton?  —  in  the  whole  United  States.' 

"  *  Oh,  Mr.  Collenquest,  I  couldn't  do  that,' 
I  said. 

"  Then  he  got  frightened  all  over  again. 

"  «  Why  not?  '  he  demanded.    '  Why  not?  » 

"  *  I  wouldn't  put  a  price  on  my  secrecy,' 
I  said.  4  That  wasn't  what  I  meant  at  all, 
only  I  thought  you  might  be  good-natured 
enough  to  let  me  in  on  the  deal  —  with  a 
margin  on  Gee-whizz,  you  know.' 

"  '  I  suppose  I  am  getting  old,'  he  said, 
'  and  getting  stupid  —  but  would  you  mind 
explaining  to  me  what  you  want  in  words  of 
one  syllable  ? ' 

"  *  You  wanted  to  put  papa  on  a  good 
thing,'  I  said.  '  He  wouldn't  have  it,  so  I 
thought  you  might  pass  it  along  to  me.' 

18 


THE     MOTORMANIACS 

"  *  You  seem  to  have  passed  it  along  to 
yourself,'  he  remarked,  a  bit  ironically. 

"  '  It's  a  very  small  matter  to  you,'  I  plead- 
ed, *  but  it's  a  whole  Manton  to  me.' 

"  *  And  the  shock  nearly  killed  father,5  he 
said,  mopping  his  bishop  forehead. 

"  *  I  can  make  papa  give  me  four  hundred 
and  fifty  dollars  for  Gee-whizz,'  I  said ;  *  and 
the  question  is,  is  that  enough  ?  ' 

"  *  Enough  for  what?  '  he  asked. 

"  *  For  a  Manton,  of  course,'  I  said. 

"  *  Would  you  mind  putting  it  in  figures 
instead  of  gasoline  ? '  he  said,  laughing  as 
though  he  had  made  an  awfully  good  joke. 
I  laughed,  too  —  just  to  humor  him. 

"  *  Well,'  I  said,  *  with  acetylene  lamps, 
top,  baskets,  extra  tires,  French  tooter, 
freight,  insurance,  spare  tools  and  a  leather 
coat  —  say  three  thousand.' 

"  '  I  can  double  that  for  you,'  he  said. 

"  *  I  don't  want  one  cent  more,'  I  said. 
That  was  just  my  chance  to  shine  —  and  I 
shined. 

"  He  made  a  note  of  it  in  his  pocketbook. 

19 


THE     MOTORMANIACS 

"<  That's  settled,'  he  said. 

"  '  Not  till  I've  said  one  thing  more,'  I  re- 
marked, '  and  that  is,  I  shan't  be  horrid  if  the 
thing  goes  the  wrong  way.  My  dressmaker 
once  put  a  hundred  dollars  in  an  oil  company, 
and  the  oil  company  man  was  surer  than  you 
—  and  yet  it  went  pop.  I  can  easily  tease 
my  mare  back  from  papa.' 

"  He  lay  back  again  in  the  hammock  and 
laughed,  and  laughed,  and  laughed. 

"  «  Oh,  Jess  Hardy,'  he  said,  '  you'll  be  the 
death  of  me ! '  —  and  he  laughed  as  though  it 
was  at  one  of  his  own  jokes. 

"  '  I'd  hate  to  make  a  vacancy  in  the  won- 
derful old  class  of  seventy-nine,'  I  said. 

" (  Now,  I  want  to  say  something,  too,'  he 
said,  getting  serious  again.  l  If  you  have  a 
pet  minister  who  can't  afford  a  holiday,  or 
you  want  to  help  that  dressmaker  pay  off  her 
mortgage,  or  give  a  boost  to  a  poor  family 
who  have  had  diphtheria  —  don't  you  think 
to  help  them  by  tipping  off  Great  Western 
Preferred.  That  sort  of  charity  may  sound 
cheap,  but  it's  likely  to  cost  me  hundreds  of 

20 


THE     MOTOEMANIACS 

thousands.  Let  me  know,  and  I'll  send  them 
checks.' 

"  '  Don't  you  worry  about  me,'  I  said. 

"  *  I  am  told  you  are  engaged  to  an  Eng- 
lishman,' he  said ; '  an  Embassy  man  at  Wash- 
ington. You  aren't  making  any  kind  of 
mental  reservation  in  his  case,  are  you  ?  ' 

"  '  He's  the  last  person  I  tell  anything  to,' 
I  said.  '  That  is,  —  anything  important, 
you  know.' 

"  *  Then,  Miss  Jess  Hardy,'  he  said,  with 
his  eyes  twinkling  as  though  he  were  giving 
an  Apostolic  benediction  at  a  Vanderbilt  wed- 
ding, '  if  you'll  bring  me  your  four-fifty  we'll 
close  the  deal.' 

"  *  Perhaps  it  would  be  as  well  to  leave  papa 
out  of  this,'  I  hinted.  *  I  mean  about  telling 
him  anything,  you  know.' 

"  «  Oh,  distinctly,'  he  said.  *  Fred's  a  bit 
old-fashioned  and  we  must  respect  his  preju- 
dices. Wait  till  you  get  him  on  the  cow- 
catcher of  your  Manton,  and  then  break  it  to 
him  gently.' 

"  *  And,  Mr.  Collenquest,'  I  said,  *  if  you 

21 


THE     MOTORMANIAC8 

should  really  think  it  awfully  low  and  horrid 
of  me  to  do  this  —  I  won't  do  it.' 

"  *  My  dear  little  girl,'  he  returned,  '  get 
that  out  of  your  head  right  here.  I  hope 
your  car  will  prove  everything  you  want  it  to 
be,  and  the  same  with  your  Englishman,  and 
I'm  only  too  grateful  that  it  wasn't  a  steam 
yacht  you  had  set  your  heart  on,  or  a  palace 
on  the  Hudson.' 

"  There  isn't  much  more  to  be  said  about 
this  part  of  the  affair.  Papa  paid  me  four- 
fifty  for  Gee-whizz,  and  I  handed  the  check 
to  Mr.  Collenquest,  and  Mr.  Collenquest  went 
away,  and  then  the  market  began  to  turn 
bullish  (isn't  that  the  word?)  and  Great 
Western  went  up  with  a  whoop,  and  it  got 
whoopier  and  whoopier;  and  whenever  any- 
body was  certain  it  had  reached  the  top-notchi 
it  would  take  another  kick  skyward,  and  it 
went  on  jumping  and  jumping  till  finally 
there  came  a  letter  from  Mr.  Collenquest  with 
a  check  for  three  thousand  five  hundred  dol- 
lars, saying  I  must  have  forgotten  about  buy- 
ing Gee-whizz  back  again,  and  that  he  had 


THE     MOTORM ANIACS 

taken  the  liberty  of  exceeding  my  instructions 
about  selling  till  my  shares  had  touched  that 
figure.  Then  one  morning,  as  we  were  at 
breakfast,  a  great  big  splendid  Manton  car 

—  my  car  —  came  whisking  up  the  drive  and 
stopped  in  front  of  the  house,  and  the  expert 

—  they  had  thrown  him  in  for  a  week  for  noth- 
ing—  him  and  an  odometer  and  an  ammeter 
and  a  new  kind  of  French  spark-plug  they 
wanted  me  to  try  —  and  a  gasoline  tester  — 
the  Mantons  are  such  nice  people  to  deal  with 
in  all  those  little  ways  —  and  the  expert  sent 
in  word :  would  Miss  Hardy  come  out  and  see 
her  new  car?     And,  of  course,  Miss  Hardy 
went  out,  and  Mr.  Hardy  went  out,  and  my 
aunt  went  out,  and  the  five  guests  that  were 
staying  with  us  went  out,  and  the  servants 
went  out  —  and  you  never  saw  such  a  mix-up 
in  all  your  life,  nor  such  excitement  and  hur- 
rah-boys generally.     For  papa  was  ordering 
it  off  the  place,  and  I  was  explaining  about 
Great  Western  Preferred,  and  my  aunt  was 
trying  to  make  us  listen  about  a  friend  who 
had  been  burned  to   death  with,  a  gasoline 

23 


THE     MOTORMANIACS 

stove,  and  the  guests  were  taking  my  part  and 
fighting  for  the  first  ride,  and  the  expert  was 
showing  off  the  double  vertical  cylinders,  and 
explaining  splash  lubrication  to  the  butler, 
whom  he  must  have  mistaken  for  papa,  and  — 

"  When  it  had  settled  down  a  bit  and  the 
battle-smoke  drifted  away  and  showed  who 
had  won  —  which  was  me,  naturally  —  and  I 
had  promised  aunt  to  be,  oh,  so  careful,  and 
papa  that  I'd  cross  my  heart  never  to  go  into 
stocks  again,  and  rides,  of  course,  to  the 
guests,  and  everything  to  everybody  —  then 
they  all  went  back  to  breakfast  while  I  had 
mine  brought  out  on  the  veranda  —  mine  and 
the  expert's  —  and  I  guess  I  talked  four 
speeds  ahead  while  he  ate  his  on  the  low  gear 
—  for  he  had  come  ninety  miles  and  wasn't 
much  of  a  talker  at  any  time  —  and  I  just  sat 
there  and  gloated  over  my  Manton. 

"  We  had  a  perfectly  delirious  week  to- 
gether —  the  expert  and  I  —  for  the  Manton 
turned  out  perfectly  splendid  and  everything 
they  said  it  was,  except  for  the  rear  tires 
blowing  up  three  times,  and  a  short  circuit  in 

24 


THE     MOTOEM ANIACS 

the  coil  owing  to  a  faulty  condenser;  and 
though  it  was  all  I  could  do  to  hold  it  down 
on  the  low  speeds,  you  ought  to  have  seen  me 
on  the  forty-mile  clip  —  till  they  said  I'd 
have  to  go  to  prison  for  the  next  offense  with- 
out the  option  of  a  fine.  The  expert  was  one 
of  the  nicest  men  you  ever  saw,  and  we  used 
to  take  off  cylinder  heads,  and  adjust  cams, 
and  spend  hours  knocking  everything  to 
pieces  and  putting  them  together  again  so 
that  I  might  be  prepared  for  getting  on  with- 
out him.  He  said  he  hated  to  think  of  that 
time,  and  what  do  you  suppose  he  did?  I 
was  lying  under  the  machine  at  the  time, 
studying  the  differential,  while  he  was  jacking 
up  an  axle.  Proposed,  positively.  I  dropped 
a  nut  and  a  cotter  pin  out  of  my  mouth,  I  was 
so  astonished.  We  talked  it  over  for  about 
five  minutes  through  one  of  the  artillery 
wheels,  and  I  must  say  he  took  it  beautifully. 
I  wanted  to  be  nice  to  him,  because  he  had 
been  so  patient  in  explaining  things,  and 
never  got  tired  of  being  asked  the  same  ques- 
tion fifty  times.  He  wiped  his  eyes  with  some 

25 


THE     MOTOEMANIACS 

cotton  waste  and  told  me  that  even  if  years 
were  to  pass  and  oceans  and  continents  di- 
vide us,  I  had  only  to  say  'come'  and  he'd 
come  —  that  is,  if  I  ever  got  into  real  trouble 
with  the  Manton. 

"  When  it  came  to  saying  good-by  to  him 
I  let  him  take  my  cap  as  a  keepsake  and  ac- 
cepted a  dynamo  igniter  that  he  guaranteed 
not  to  burn  out  the  wires  (though  that's  ex- 
actly what  it  did  a  week  afterward)  and  it 
was  all  too  sad  for  anything.  The  governor, 
you  know,  that  was  attached  to  the  igniter, 
got  stuck  somehow,  and  of  course  the  current 
just  sizzled  up  the  plug.  Then,  when  I  had 
been  running  the  machine  for  about  a  week 
and  doing  splendidly  with  it,  Captain  Cart- 
wright  turned  up  from  Washington.  I  sup- 
pose I  wasn't  so  pleased  as  I  ought  to  have 
been  to  see  him,  for  though  we  were  engaged 
and  all  that,  there  were  wheels  within  wheels 
and  —  you  know  how  silly  girls  are  and  what 
fool  things  they  do,  and  Gerard  Malcolm  — 
and  the  captain,  to  make  matters  worse,  talked 
a  whole  streak  about  good  form,  and  how  in 

26 


THE     MOTOEMANIACS 

England  they  always  walked  their  automo- 
biles, and  how  hateful  anything  like  speeding 
(and  going  to  jail)  was  to  a  real  English 
lady,  and  *  Oh,  my  dear,  would  the  Queen  do 
it  ? '  Can't  you  hear  him  ?  It  goaded  me 
into  saying  awful  things  back,  and  when  I 
took  him  out  for  his  first  spin,  as  grumpy  as 
only  an  Englishman  can  be  after  you've  in- 
sulted him  from  his  hat  to  his  boots,  I  just 
opened  the  throttle,  threw  in  the  high  clutch, 
and  let  her  go.  There  were  some  things  I 
liked  about  the  captain,  and  the  best  was  that 
he  didn't  scare  easy.  He  just  folded  hia 
arms  and  never  wiggled  an  eyelash  while  I 
took  some  of  the  grades  like  the  Empire  State 
Express. 

**  I  knew  he  was  boiling  inside,  in  spite  of 
his  calm,  British,  new-washed  look,  for  I 
hadn't  let  him  kiss  me  or  anything,  and  no- 
body, however  brave  he  is,  welcomes  the  idea 
of  being  squashed  under  a  ton  of  old  iron. 
You  see  I  was  in  a  perfectly  vicious  humor, 
thinking  what  an  awful  mistake  I  had  made, 
and  what  a  little  fool  I  had  been,  and  how  if 

27 


THE     MOTOEMANIACS 

it  had  only  been  Gerard  Malcolm  —  and 
while  my  hands  were  clenched  on  the  steering- 
wheel  I  could  see  the  mark  of  his  horrid  ring 
sticking  through  my  gauntlets,  and  I  wouldn't 
have  cared  two  straws  if  I  had  blown  up  a 
tire  just  then,  and  driven  head-foremost 
through  a  stone  wall. 

"  I  had  given  him  about  eighteen  miles  of 
this  sort  of  thing  when  the  right-hand  cylin- 
der began  to  miss  a  little.  Then,  after  a 
while,  the  left  started  to  skip,  too.  I  stopped 
under  a  tree  to  look  for  the  trouble  and  pulled 
up  the  bonnet.  The  spark-plugs  were  badly 
carbonized,  and  when  I  had  seen  to  them  and 
had  put  the  captain  on  the  crank,  we  could 
only  get  explosions  at  intervals.  There  was 
good  compression ;  everything  was  lubricating 
nicely;  no  heating  or  sticking  anywhere  — 
but  the  engine  had  lain  down  on  us.  The 
captain  was  so  angry  he  wouldn't  speak  a 
word  to  me,  and  mumbled  red-hot  things  to 
himself  under  his  breath.  Guess  how  /  felt. 
But  he  was  too  much  of  a  gentleman  not  to 
crank  —  and  so  he  cranked  and  cranked  and 

28 


THE     MOTO EM ANIACS 

still  nothing  happened.  I  chased  a  whole  row 
of  things  one  after  another  —  battery,  buz- 
zer, oil  or  gasoline  in  the  cylinders,  defective 
insulation,  commutator,  water  in  the  carburet- 
tor, choked  feed-pipe, —  and  all  it  did  was  to 
cough  in  a  dreary,  tow-me-home-to-mother 
sort  of  way. 

"  If  the  captain  had  known  anything  about 
engines  and  could  have  made  it  start,  I  ex- 
pect I  would  have  married  him  and  lived  hap- 
py ever  afterward.  It  was  just  his  Heaven- 
sent chance  to  win  out  and  show  he  was  the 
right  man  for  the  place.  But  he  didn't 
know  enough  to  run  a  phonograph  and  began 
to  talk  about  getting  towed  home,  and  how  if 
he  ever  bought  a  machine  it  would  be  electric. 
If  I  had  been  out  of  patience  with  him  before, 
imagine  what  I  felt  then!  He  said  he  knew 
all  the  time  I  was  driving  too  fast  and  hurt- 
ing something,  and  thought  he  had  proved  it 
by  the  cylinders  being  hot  —  as  though  they 
aren't  always  hot.  It  was  awful  how  stupid 
he  was  and  helpless  and  disagreeable.  He 
couldn't  even  crank  properly  and  the  engine 

29 


THE     MOTOBMANIACS 

back-fired  on  him  and  hurt  his  hand.  Finally 
I  got  so  desperate  that  I  sat  down  and  cried, 
while  he  nursed  his  hand  and  said  we  ought  to 
desert  the  machine  and  go  home,  and  that 
papa  would  be  anxious  if  we  didn't  turn  up 
to  lunch.  I  knew  all  the  time  he  was  talking 
about  his  lunch.  You  don't  know  what  an 
Englishman  is  if  he  isn't  fed  regularly,  and  it 
was  now  after  one  and  we  were  eighteen  miles 
from  High  Court. 

"  But  I  wasn't  the  girl  to  give  up  the  ship. 
As  long  as  there  weren't  any  fractures  or 
things  stuck  together  I  knew  the  expert  could 
have  made  it  go  —  and  if  the  expert,  why  not 
I?  If  the  captain  hadn't  flurried  me  with 
all  the  silly  things  he  said,  I  believe  I  would 
have  ferreted  out  the  trouble  all  right.  But 
I  was  so  cross  and  tired  and  disgusted  that 
my  brain  was  stalled  as  well  as  the  Manton, 
and  so  I  gave  up  for  a  little  while  and 
wouldn't  even  answer  the  captain  when  he 
spoke  to  me. 

"  Oh,  yes,  we  were  pigs,  both  of  us,  he  in 
his  way  and  I  in  mine ;  and  the  sun  went  down 

30 


THE     MOTORM ANIACS 

and  down,  and  it  didn't  make  me  feel  any 
better  to  think  that  I  was  smudged  all  over 
with  grease,  and  that  my  hands  and  nails  were 
something  awful  —  while  if  ever  there  was  a 
galley-slave  at  the  oar,  it  was  the  Honorable 
John  Vincent  Cartwright  cranking. 

"  We  went  on  in  this  way  till  nearly  four 
o'clock,  when  what  should  we  hear  coming 
along  the  road  but  a  buggy,  and  who  should 
be  in  that  buggy  but  Gerard  Malcolm  with 
an  actressy-looking  girl!  I  wasn't  over- 
pleased  at  the  girl  part  of  it,  but  it  did  my 
heart  good  to  see  Gerard.  He  drew  up  along- 
side the  Manton  and  leaped  out  of  the  buggy, 
so  splendid  and  handsome  and  cool  and  mas- 
terful, with  a  glisten  in  his  eye  which  said: 
*  Bring  on  your  gas-engine ! '  —  that  I  loved 
him  harder  than  ever,  and  could  have  almost 
torn  the  captain's  ring  off  my  finger.  He 
didn't  waste  any  time  saying  how-do-you-do, 
but  just  asked  this  and  that  and  dived  in. 
Then  he  pegged  away  for  about  five  minutes, 
wiped  his  hands,  took  his  hat  that  the  captain 
had  been  holding,  and  said :  *  Gears ! ' 

3  31 


THE     MOTOEMANIACS 

" '  It'll  take  me  about  two  hours  to  break 
them  loose/  he  said,  *  and  so  if  Miss  Stanton 
wouldn't  mind  trading  escorts,  and  if  the 
captain  would  take  the  buggy,  I  think  Miss 
Hardy  and  I  had  better  stay  by  the  machine.' 

"  Miss  Stanton  didn't  look  nearly  so  pleased 
as  the  captain;  but  when  Gerard  said  again 
he  positively  couldn't  manage  it  under  two 
hours,  and  I  snubbed  her  when  she  proposed 
towing,  and  when  the  captain  brightened  up 
and  made  a  good  impression  —  he  was  so  ex-r 
cited,  poor  fellow,  at  the  chance  of  getting 
away  —  that  it  all  came  right,  and  they  drove 
off  cheerfully  together.  When  they  had 
quite  disappeared,  Gerard  threw  down  the 
wrench  he  had  in  his  hand,  and  said  we'd  now 
have  that  talk  he  had  been  trying  to  get  with 
me  for  the  past  month. 

"  4  We'll  do  the  gears  first,  thank  you,'  I 
said. 

"  '  Gears ! '  he  exclaimed,  *  there's  nothing 
the  matter  with  the  gears.  I  thought  you 
were  chauffeur  enough  for  that.' 

"  *  But  you  said — '  I  began. 

32 


THE     MOTORM ANIACS 

"  '  I  can  make  this  car  move  in  five  min- 
utes,' he  said,  climbing  into  the  tonneau  and 
motioning  with  his  hand  for  me  to  take  the 
other  seat. 

"  Of  course  I  obeyed  him.  I  didn't  want 
to,  but  somehow  when  Gerard  wants  a  thing 
I  always  do  it.  They  say  every  woman  finds 
her  master,  and  though  I  hate  to  admit  it 
even  to  myself,  I  suppose  Gerard  is  mine. 
But  I  hid  it  all  I  could  and  I  dare  say  I  was 
pretty  successful.  It  came  all  the  easier  be- 
cause Gerard  himself  was  kind  of  embarrassed, 
and  he  colored  up  and  stammered  while  I  sat 
in  the  tonneau,  waiting  for  him  to  begin. 

" '  I  thought  you  said  you  were  going  to 
talk,'  I  said. 

"  '  Jess,'  he  said,  '  my  sister  is  going  to  get 
married.' 

"  Now,  this  was  news,  indeed.  She  was 
lots  older  than  Gerard  —  forty  years  old,  if 
a  day  —  and  a  chronic  invalid.  I  don't  know 
exactly  what  was  the  matter  with  her,  but  she 
had  a  bad  complexion,  and  used  to  stick  pretty 
tight  to  the  house,  and  was  always  absorbed 


THE     MOTORMANIACS 

in  church  work.  She  had  snappy  black  eyes, 
and  Gerard  couldn't  call  his  soul  his  own. 
They  kept  house  together,  you  know,  and  had 
been  orphans  ever  since  they  were  little. 

"  *  Oh,  married ! '  I  said,  pretending  to  be 
a  little  interested. 

"  4  It's  Mr.  Simpson,  the  curate,'  he  said. 

"  It  seemed  rude  to  be  too  surprised, 
so  I  just  rattled  off  some  of  the  usual  con- 
gratulations. Gerard  didn't  say  a  word. 
He  simply  looked  and  looked,  and  there  was 
something  beautiful  to  me  in  his  shame  and 
backwardness  and  hesitation. 

" '  It's  very  unexpected,'  he  blurted  out 
at  last.  '  I  thought  I  was  going  to  take  care 
of  her  always.  It  is  going  to  make  a  great 
difference  in  my  life.' 

"  *  I  know  how  you  always  devoted  yourself 
to  her,*  I  said. 

"  '  I  had  made  up  my  mind  never  to  marry,' 
he  went  on.  *  How  could  I  marry  ?  for  it 
would  have  been  like  turning  her  out  of  doors. 
She  was  too  ill  and  helpless  and  despondent 
to  live  by  herself,  and  had  I  brought  a  third 


THE     MOTORM A N I AC S 

person  into  the  family  it  would  have  been 
misery  all  round.5 

"  Still  I  said  nothing. 

"  *  Jess,'  he  said  suddenly,  '  don't  you  un- 
derstand ?  Can't  you  understand  ?  ' 

"  In  fact,  I  did  understand  very  well.  It 
explained  a  heap  of  things  —  why  he  had  al- 
ways acted  so  strangely  —  sometimes  so  de- 
voted to  me,  sometimes  so  distant;  crazy  to 
hold  my  hand  one  day  and  avoiding  me  the 
next.  It  was  no  wonder  he  had  made  me  ut- 
terly desperate  and  piqued  me  into  accepting 
the  captain.  Then  he  said :  *  Jess,  Jess ! '  like 
that ;  and  '  for  God's  sake,  was  it  too  late  ?  ' 

"  I  couldn't  trust  myself  to  speak  and  I 
could  feel  my  lips  trembling.  I  didn't  sob 
or  anything,  but  the  tears  just  rolled  down 
my  cheeks.  Wasn't  it  a  dead  give-away? 
It's  awful  to  care  for  a  man  as  much  as  that. 
I  thought  it  was  splendid  of  him  that  he 
didn't  try  to  kiss  me.  He  simply  took  my 
hand  and  pulled  off  the  captain's  ring  and 
said  I  had  to  give  it  back  to  him  at  once. 
Then  I  broke  down  altogether  and  began  to 

35 


THE     MOTOEM ANIACS 

cry  like  a  baby,  while  Gerard  got  out  and 
emptied  the  kerosene  from  the  oil  lamps  into 
the  exhaust  valves.  You  see,  pieces  of  scale 
from  the  inside  of  the  cylinders  had  wedged 
against  the  exhaust-valve  seats  so  that  they 
wouldn't  close  tight,  but  leaked  and  leaked. 
Gerard  said  that  new  Mantons  always  feed 
too  rich  a  mixture  at  first  and  that  he  knew 
what  was  the  matter  the  moment  he  stuck  his 
fingers  in. 

"  We  went  home  on  the  second  speed  so 
that  Gerard  could  steer  with  one  hand. 

"  Oh,  the  captain  ?  He  acted  kind  of  mis- 
erable at  first,  and  was  awfully  sarcastic 
about  being  a  gentleman  and  not  a  gas-engi- 
neer. But  I  said  the  modern  idea  was  to  be 
both.  He  got  himself  transferred  home  and 
I  really  think  it  was  the  making  of  him  —  for 
what  do  you  think  happened  last  week?  He 
won  the  non-stop  London  to  Glasgow  race  on 
an  eighteen  horsepower  Renault.  I  felt  quite 
proud  of  him. 

"  He  has  asked  Gerard  and  me  and  the 
Manton  to  spend  a  month  with  him  in  Eng- 

36 


THE     MOT ORM ANIACS 

land  when  we  go  abroad.  He  said  I'd  prob- 
ably be  pleased  to  hear  that  he  had  made  a 
lovely  garage  out  of  his  ancestral  Norman 
chapel.  But  I  suppose  that  was  j  ust  his  Eng- 
lish humor,  you  know.  Anyway,  we  are  the 
best  of  friends,  and  if  I  ever  see  him  again  I'll 
give  him  a  double  toot  on  my  French  horn." 

"  And  what  became  of  the  curate  and  Ger- 
ard's sister?  " 

"  Oh,  they  married  and  went  into  steam." 


37 


THE  GREAT  BUBBLE  SYN- 
DICATE 

I  suppose  it  was  a  fool  arrangement,  but 
anyway  we  did  it ;  and  Harry  Prentiss,  who  is 
learning  how  to  be  a  corporation  lawyer  and 
has  specialized  on  contracts,  spent  a  whole 
week  making  it  what  he  called  iron-clad. 
When  it  was  typewritten  it  covered  nine 
pages,  and  was  so  excessively  iron-clad  that 
nobody  could  understand  it  but  Harry.  He 
said  it  undoubtedly  covered  the  ground,  how- 
ever, and  would  be  worth  all  the  trouble  it 
cost  him  in  the  friction  it  would  save  after- 
ward. You'd  hardly  know  Harry  as  the  same 
boy  that  played  Yale  full-back,  he's  grown  so 
cynical  and  suspicious,  and  he's  got  that  law- 
yer way  of  looking  at  you  now,  as  though  you 
were  a  liar  and  he  was  just  about  to  pounce 
on  you  with  the  truth.  I  thought  he  might 
have  brought  Nelly  and  himself  into  the 

38 


THE  GREAT  BUBBLE  SYNDICATE 

agreement  under  one  head,  considering  he  was 
engaged  to  her  and  they  were  only  wait- 
ing to  save  a  thousand  dollars  in  order  to  get 
married ;  but  he  couldn't  see  it  in  that  way  at 
all,  and  spoke  about  people  changing  their 
minds,  and  how  In  law  you  must  be  prepared 
for  everything  (especially  if  it  were  dis- 
agreeable and  unexpected)  and  put  supposi- 
titious cases  till  Nelly  broke  down  and  cried. 
They  had  got  five  hundred  toward  the 
thousand  when  they  were  both  taken  with 
automobile  fever  —  and  taken  bad ;  and  then 
they  decided  that,  though  marriage  was  all 
right,  they  were  still  young,  and  the  bub- 
ble had  the  first  call.  Harry  had  been 
secretly  taking  the  Horseless  Age  for  three 
months,  and  as  for  Nelly  —  anybody  with  a 
four-cylinder  tonneau  could  have  torn  her 
from  her  happy  home.  Not  that  she  didn't 
love  Harry  tremendously.  She  was  crazy 
about  him  —  but  crazier  for  a  bubble.  It's 
an  infatuation  like  any  other,  only  worse,  and 
I  guess  I  was  no  better  than  Nelly  myself,  for 
I  used  to  ride  regularly  with  Lewis  Wentz  — 

39 


THE     GREAT     BUBBLE     SYNDICATE 

and  you  know  what  Lewis  Wentz  is.  And  he 
only  had  a  wheezy  old  steam  carriage  any- 
way, and  sometimes  blue  flames  would  leap  up 
all  around  you  till  you  felt  like  a  Christian 
martyr,  and  his  boiler  was  always  burning 
out  when  he'd  try  to  hold  my  hand  instead  of 
watching  the  gage.  You  paid  in  every  kind 
of  way  for  riding  with  Lewis  Wentz,  and  peo- 
ple talked  about  you  besides  —  but  I  always 
went  just  the  same.  Oh,  I  know  I  ought  to 
be  ashamed  to  admit  it,  and  I  said  to  myself 
every  time  should  be  the  last ;  yet  he  only  had 
to  double-toot  at  the  front  door  for  me  to 
drop  everything  and  run.  This  naturally 
made  him  awfully  forward  and  troublesome, 
not  to  speak  of  complicating  me  with  pa,  who 
didn't  approve  of  him  the  least  bit,  and  who 
used  to  regale  me  with  little  talks  beginning: 
"  I  would  rather  see  you  lying  dead  in  your 
coffin,"  and  winding  up  with,  "  Now,  won't 
you  promise  your  poor  old  dad  ?  "  till  I  was 
all  broken  up.  But,  as  I  said  before,  Lewis 
Wentz  had  only  to  toot  for  me  to  forget  my 
old  dad  and  the  coffin  and  everything. 

40 


THE     GEEAT     BUBBLE     SYNDICATE 

With  only  five  hundred  dollars  to  go  on, 
Harry  and  Nelly,  of  course,  had  to  look  about 
for  more  capital ;  and  that  was  why  they  chose 
me  to  go  in  with  them.  I  didn't  have  any 
capital  except  a  rich  father,  but  I  suppose 
they  thought  that  was  the  same  thing.  Peo- 
ple are  so  apt  to  —  though  I  never  found  it 
the  same  thing  at  all.  Then,  too,  Nelly  and 
I  were  bosom  friends,  and  they  naturally 
wanted  to  give  me  the  first  chance.  Their 
original  plan  had  been  to  have  the  bubble  held 
in  four  equal  shares,  taking  in  Morty  Trus- 
low  as  the  fourth.  I  think  there  was  a  little 
scheme  in  that,  too,  for  Morty  and  I  hadn't 
spoken  for  three  months,  and  it  was  all  off 
between  us.  There  was  a  time  when  I 
thought  there  was  only  one  thing  in  the 
world,  and  that  was  Morty  Truslow  —  but 
that  was  over  for  good,  with  nothing  left  of  it 
but  a  great  big  ache.  I  can  never  be  grateful 
enough  to  Mrs.  Gettridge  for  putting  me  on 
to  it,  for,  however  much  a  girl  cares  for 
a  man,  her  pride  won't  let  her  —  and  she  was 
Josie's  aunt,  you  know,  and  if  anybody  was 

41 


THE     GREAT     BUBBLE     SYNDICATE 

on  the  inside  track,  she  was  —  and  I  cut  him 
dead  and  sent  back  his  letters  unopened, 
though  he  wrote  and  wrote  —  and  it  was 
awfully  hard,  you  know,  because  I  just  had  to 
grit  my  teeth  together  to  keep  from  loving 
him  to  death.  Nelly  said  I  was  just  too 
proud  and  silly  for  anything,  and  pa  looked 
as  depressed  as  though  there  was  another 
slump  in  Preferred  Steel,  and  mama  said  he 
was  such  a  catch  that  the  first  designing  girl 
would  snap  him  up,  and  Harry  said  you 
wouldn't  know  Morty  now,  he  was  so  changed 
and  different. 

So  that  was  how  it  was  when  Nelly  and 
Harry  started  the  Great  Bubble  Syndicate 
and  wanted  to  take  Morty  and  me  into  it  as 
quarter  share-holders  each.  But  I  wouldn't 
have  joined  in  a  heavenly  chariot  on  those 
terms,  and  so  we  talked  and  talked  till  finally 
Morty  was  eliminated  and  we  settled  on  a 
two-third  and  one-third  basis.  The  next 
point  was  to  choose  the  car,  for  it  had  to  be  a 
cheap  car  and  we  wanted  to  get  the  very  best 
for  our  money.  Harry  said  the  Model  E 

42 


THE     GREAT     BUBBLE     SYNDICATE 

Fearless  runabout  at  seven  hundred  and  fifty 
was  the  bulliest  little  car  on  the  market ;  and 
that  the  Fearless  agent  was  so  good  and  kind 
and  looked  so  much  like  Henry  Ward  Beecher 
that  you  felt  uplifted  just  to  be  with  him; 
and  that  you  knew  instinctively  that  his  car 
was  sure  to  be  the  best  car. 

A  picture  of  the  Fearless  settled  the  matter, 
for  it  was  a  real  little  beauty  —  long  in  the 
chassis  and  very  low,  with  wood  artillery 
wheels  and  guards  and  lamps  thrown  in  for 
nothing.  Harry  said  it  had  more  power  than 
it  knew  what  to  do  with  and  was  a  bird  on  the 
hills,  and  that  he  had  a  friend  who  had  a 
friend  who  owned  one  and  swore  by  it.  Af- 
terward we  met  him  and  towed  him  nine  miles, 
and  what  swearing  he  did  was  all  the  other 
way;  however,  I  mustn't  get  ahead  of  the 
story,  or  anticipate,  as  they  say  in  novels. 

Getting  two  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  from 
pa  was  the  next  step,  and  of  all  my  automo- 
biling  experiences  it  was  certainly  the  worst. 
He  couldn't  see  it  at  all,  though  I  caught  him 
after  dinner  and  sat  on  the  arm  of  his  chair 

43 


THE     GBEAT     BUBBLE     SYNDICATE 

and  rubbed  my  cheek  against  his  like  the  sun- 
ny-haired daughter  on  the  stage. 

He  ought  to  have  reciprocated  by  doing 
angel  parent,  but  he  talked  horse-sense  in- 
stead; how  he  couldn't  afford  to  buy  me  a 
whole  car,  and  how  in  his  experience  divided 
ownership  always  ended  in  the  people  hating 
one  another  ever  afterward,  and  how  danger- 
ous automobiling  was  anyway,  and  how  much 
nicer  it  would  be  to  have  a  beautiful  little 
horse. 

Then  I  gave  him  the  iron-clad  agreement. 
He  put  on  his  spectacles  and  read  it,  asking 
me  not  to  breathe  on  his  neck,  as  it  tickled 
him.  (How  different  real  life  is  from  the 
stage !)  And  he  began  to  giggle  at  the  second 
page;  at  the  third  he  could  hardly  go  on; 
and  finally,  when  mama  came  in  and  asked 
what  was  the  matter,  he  couldn't  speak  at  all, 
but  got  up  and  stamped  about  the  room  till 
you  thought  he  was  going  to  have  a  fit. 
Then  he  sat  down  again  and  wiped  his  eyes 
and  asked  as  a  favor  whether  he  mightn't  have 
a  copy  for  himself.  I  said  I  might  possibly 


THE     GREAT     BUBBLE     SYNDICATE 

manage  it  if  he  would  come  down  with  the  two 
hundred  and  fifty. 

Then  he  got  kind  of  serious  again ;  asked  if 
I  didn't  know  any  cheaper  way  of  getting 
killed ;  said  I  might  have  appendicitis  for  the 
same  money  and  be  fashionable.  When  pa  is 
in  the  right  humor  he  can  tease  awfully,  and 
that  agreement  had  set  him  off  worse  than  I 
had  ever  remembered.  But  I  stuck  to  my 
bubble  and  wasn't  to  be  guyed  out  of  the 
idea,  and  finally  he  lit  a  cigar  and  started  in 
to  bargain. 

Pa  is  the  worst  old  skinflint  in  Connecticut, 
and  never  even  gave  me  a  box  of  peanut 
candy  without  getting  a  double  equivalent. 
First  of  all,  I  had  to  give  up  Lewis  Wentz  en- 
tirely; I  wasn't  to  speak  to  him,  or  bow  or 
bubble  or  dance  or  anything.  I  put  up  a 
good  fight  for  Lewis  Wentz  —  not  that  I 
cared  two  straws  for  him,  now  that  I  was  go- 
ing to  have  an  automobile  of  my  own,  but 
just  to  head  pa  off  from  grasping  for  more. 
I  didn't  want  to  be  eaten  out  of  house  and 
home,  you  know,  and  I  guess  I  am  too  much 

45 


THE     GBEAT     BUBBLE     SYNDICATE 

pa's  daughter  to  surrender  more  than  I  could 
help. 

It  was  well  I  did  so,  for  on  top  of  that  I 
had  to  promise  never  to  ride  in  any  car  ex- 
cept my  own,  and  then  he  branched  off  into 
my  giving  up  coffee  for  breakfast,  going  to 
bed  at  ten,  only  one  dance  a  week,  wearing 
flannel  in  winter,  minding  my  mother  more, 
and  Heaven  only  knows  what  all.  But  I  said 
that  Lewis  Wentz  alone  was  worth  two  hun- 
dred and  fifty,  and  that  I'd  draw  on  the  other 
things  when  I  needed  money  for  repairs. 
Then  pa  suddenly  had  a  new  notion  and  said 
he  wanted  to  be  in  the  thing,  too ;  would  take 
a  quarter  interest  of  his  own;  that  we'd 
change  the  syndicate  to  fourths  instead  of 
thirds. 

I  was  almost  too  thunderstruck  to  speak. 
Think  of  hearing  pa  saying  he  wished  to  buy 
in !  It  was  like  an  evangelist  wanting  to  take 
shares  in  the  devil.  I  could  only  say  "  Pa !  " 
like  that,  and  gasp. 

"  I  know  I'm  pretty  old  to  change,"  he 
said.  "  But  a  fellow  must  keep  up  with  the 

46 


THE     GEEAT     BUBBLE     SYNDICATE 

procession,  you  know.     And  I  always  liked 
the  way  they  smell." 

His  eyes  were  dancing  and  I  saw  he  meant 
mischief ;  but,  after  all,  the  bubble  was  assured 
now,  and  that  was  the  great  thing.  It  wasn't 
till  up  to  that  moment  that  I  felt  really  safe. 

"  I  read  here  in  the  agreement,"  he  went 
on,  "  that  the  automobile  is  taken  in  rotation 
by  every  member  of  the  syndicate;  and  that 
when  it's  my  day  it's  my  day,  and  nobody  can 
say  a  word  or  use  it  themselves,  even  if  I 
don't  care  to." 

"  That's  how  we'll  save  any  possibility  of 
friction,"  I  returned.  "  For  instance,  to-day 
it  is  absolutely  my  car ;  to-morrow  it's  yours ; 
day  after  to-morrow  it  is  Harry's ;  the  day  af- 
ter that  it's  Nelly's  —  and  if  anything  breaks 
on  your  day  it's  up  to  you  to  pay  for  it." 

"  Oh,  I'm  not  going  to  break  anything," 
said  pa  with  the  satisfied  look  of  a  person  who 
doesn't  know  anything  about  it. 

"  Don't  you  be  too  sure  about  that,"  I  said. 
"  I've  been  around  enough  with  Lewis  Wentz 
to  know  better." 

4  47 


THE     GREAT     BUBBLE     SYNDICATE 

"  Well,  you  see,"  said  pa,  "  that  depends 
on  how  much  you  use  your  automobile.  If 
you  never  take  it  out  at  all  you  eliminate  most 
of  the  bothers  connected  with  it." 

"  Never  take  it  out  at  all?  "  I  cried. 

"  On  my  day  it  stays  in  the  barn,"  he  said. 

I  began  to  see  now  what  he  was  smiling  at. 
Wasn't  it  awful  of  him?  He  simply  meant 
to  tie  it  up  for  a  quarter  of  the  time. 

"  Now,  Virgie,"  he  said,  "  you  mustn't 
think  that  I  am  not  stretching  a  point 
to  promise  you  what  I  have.  It's  too  blamed 
dangerous  and  you're  all  the  little  girl  I  have. 
Well,  if  you  must  do  it,  I  am  going  to  cut  the 
risk  by  twenty-five  per  cent,  and  my  automo- 
bile days  will  be  blanks." 

I  flared  up  at  this.  It's  awful  when  your 
father  wants  to  do  something  you're  ashamed 
of.  It  was  such  a  dog-in-the-manger  idea, 
too,  and  so  unsportsmanlike.  But  nothing 
could  shake  pa,  though  I  tried  and  tried,  and 
said  things  that  ought  to  have  pierced  a 
rhinoceros.  But  pa  ran  for  governor  once, 
and  his  skin's  thicker.  I  felt  almost  sorry  we 

48 


THE     GREAT     BUBBLE     SYNDICATE 

hadn't  taken  in  Morty  Tmslow  instead  —  not 
really,  you  know,  but  just  for  the  moment. 

"  How  can  I  tell  Harry  and  Nelly  you're 
such  a  pig?  "  I  said,  half  crying. 

"  I'm  not  a  pig,"  said  pa,  "  though  now 
I'm  the  next  thing  to  it  —  an  automobilist. 
And,  anyway,  it's  a  straight  business  proposi- 
tion. Take  it  or  leave  it." 

"  Pa,"  I  said,  "  if  you'll  stay  out  of  it  al- 
together, I'll  take  it  back  about  coffee  for 
breakfast  and  not  minding  mama  more." 

"It's  too  late,"  he  returned.  "I've  got 
the  automobile  fever  now  myself.  For  two 
cents  I'd  buy  out  Harry  and  Nelly  and  keep 
the  red  bug  in  the  family." 

Certainly  pa  has  the  most  ingenious  mind 
of  anybody  I  know.  He  ought  to  have  been 
in  the  Spanish  Inquisition  just  to  think  up 
new  torments.  I  don't  wonder  they  like  him 
so  well  on  the  Stock  Exchange:  he  probably 
initiates  new  members  and  makes  them  ride 
goats.  Anyway,  nothing  could  change  him 
about  the  automobile,  and  I  closed  the  deal 
quick,  lest  he  might  carry  out  his  other  plan 


THE     GEEAT     BUBBLE     SYNDICATE 

and  absorb  seventy-five  per  cent,  of  the  syndi- 
cate's stock. 


The  Fearless  was  even  prettier  than  its  pic- 
ture, and  there  wasn't  a  runabout  in  town  in 
the  same  class  with  it.  Then  our  lessons  be- 
gan, which  we  took  separately,  because  there 
was  only  room  on  the  seat  for  two,  and  no- 
body wanted  the  other  members  of  the  syn- 
dicate to  see  him  running  into  the  curb  or  try- 
ing to  climb  trees.  The  agent  turned  out 
less  like  Henry  Ward  Beecher  than  Harry 
had  thought,  and  it  was  sickening  how  he 
lost  interest  in  us  after  he  got  his  money.  But 
he  threw  in  a  tooter  for  nothing  and  a  socket- 
wrench,  and  in  some  ways  lived  up  to  the 
resemblance.  He  would  not  take  me  out 
himself,  but  gave  me  in  charge  of  a  weird 
little  boy  we  called  the  Gasoline  Child.  The 
Gasoline  Child  was  about  thirteen,  and  was 
so  full  of  tools  that  he  rattled  when  he  walked, 
and  I  guess  his  head  rattled,  too  —  he  knew 
so  much  about  gas  engines.  He  was  the 

50 


THE  GREAT  BUBBLE  SYNDICATE 

greasiest,  messiest,  grittiest  and  oiliest  little 
boy  that  ever  defied  soap ;  and  Harry  always 
declared  he  was  an  automobile  variety  of  cod- 
dling-moth  or  Colorado  beetle  or  June-bug, 
who  would  wind  up  by  spinning  a  cotton- 
waste  cocoon  in  the  center  of  the  machinery 
and  hatch  out  a  million  more  like  himself. 
Perhaps  he  was  too  busy  to  start  his  happy 
home,  for  I  never  saw  him  at  the  gar- 
age but  his  little  legs  were  sticking  out  of  a 
bonnet,  and  you  could  hear  him  hammering 
inside  and  telling  somebody  to  "  Turn  it  over, 
will  you?  "  or  "  Now,  try  it  that  way,  Bill." 
But  with  all  the  heaps  he  knew,  the  Gaso- 
line Child  was  a  good  deal  like  the  man  who 
got  rich  by  never  spending  anything.  His 
knowledge  was  imbedded  in  him  like  gold  in 
quartz;  you  could  see  it  there  all  right,  but 
couldn't  take  it  out.  He  tried  so  hard  to  be 
helpful,  too ;  would  plunge  his  little  paw  into 
the  greasy  darkness  below  the  seat  and  say: 
"  That's  a  nut  you  ought  to  remember  now  — 
it  works  on  the  babbitt  of  the  countershaft " 
—  or  something  of  the  kind  — "  and  you 

51 


THE     CHEAT     BUBBLE     SYNDICATE 

must  see  to  it  regular."  Or,  "  Watch  your 
valves,  Miss,  and  be  keerful  they  don't  gum 
on  you."  Or,  "  Them  commutators  are  often 
the  seat  of  trouble,  for  oftentimes  they  wear 
down  and  don't  break  the  spark  right."  When 
I'd  grow  dizzy  with  these  explanations  he 
would  reassure  me  by  saying  that  "  I'd  soon 
fall  into  it,  like  he  did."  But  I  didn't  fall 
into  it  nearly  so  well  as  I  could  have  wished. 
On  the  contrary,  the  more  I  learned  the  more 
intricate  the  whole  thing  seemed  to  grow,  and 
I  looked  forward  to  taking  the  car  out  alone 
by  myself  with  the  sensations  of  a  prisoner 
about  to  be  guillotined.  Not  that  I  had  lost 
heart  in  automobilism.  The  elation  of  those 
rides  was  delicious.  The  little  car  ran  with 
a  lightness  that  was  almost  like  flying;  it 
was  as  buoyant,  swift  and  smooth  as  a  glori- 
fied sledge;  one  awoke  with  joy  to  the  fact 
that  the  world  contained  a  new  and  irresistible 
pleasure. 

The  Gasoline  Child  soon  taught  me  to  run 
it  for  myself.  With  him  by  my  side  I  was 
as  brave  as  a  lion,  and  I  took  the  corners  and 

52 


THE     GREAT     BUBBLE     SYNDICATE 

shaved  eternity  in  a  way  to  make  him  gasp. 
He  said  he  had  never  been  really  scared  in  an 
automobile  before,  and  he  used  to  look  at  me 
with  a  ready-to- jump  expression,  as  though 
I  were  a  baby  playing  with  a  gun.  You  see, 
I  had  graduated  on  Lewis  Wentz's  steamer 
and  a  twenty-mile  clip  didn't  feaze  me  any, 
though  there  were  times  when  I'd  forget  which 
things  to  pull,  and  this  always  seemed  to  rattle 
his  little  nerves.  It  was  strange,  however, 
what  a  coward  I  was  when  I  first  went  out  by 
myself.  There  was  no  devil  left  in  me  at  all, 
and  I  was  certainly  the  crawly-crawliest  bub- 
bler you  ever  saw,  and  I  teetered  at  street-car 
crossings  till  everybody  went  mad.  It  might 
have  been  worse  than  it  was,  though,  for  the 
only  real  trouble  I  had  was  chipping  the  tail 
off  a  milk  wagon  and  ramming  a  silly  horse 
on  Eighth  Avenue.  When  his  friends  helped 
him  up  (he  had  been  standing  still  at  the  time, 
and  I  had  forgotten  the  low  gear  always 
started  with  a  jump)  they  said  his  front  legs 
were  barked  five  dollars'  worth.  I  wouldn't 
have  minded  if  he  had  got  the  five  dollars, 

53 


THE     CHEAT     BUBBLE     SYNDICATE 

poor  thing,  for  after  ramming  him  once  I 
became  confused  at  the  notoriety  I  attracted, 
and,  instead  of  reversing,  I  threw  in  the  high- 
speed clutch  and  rammed  him  some  more. 
Oh,  yes,  he  had  some  right  to  have  a  kick 
coming,  though  all  he  did  was  to  look  at  me 
reproachfully  and  then  lie  down.  He  was  an 
Italian  vegetable  horse,  and  from  the  way 
his  friends  vociferated  they  must  have 
thought  a  lot  of  him. 

Of  course,  Harry  and  Nelly  were  taking 
their  lessons,  too,  and  getting  into  their  in- 
dividual scrapes  in  the  intervals  of  my  getting 
into  mine.  Pa  was  the  only  stock-holder  who 
never  came  to  time,  though  he  used  to  walk 
round  to  the  garage  on  his  day  to  make  sure 
the  bubble  was  at  home.  He  was  awfully 
mean  about  his  rights  and  explained  the  syn- 
dicate principle  to  Mr.  Hoover,  the  head  of 
the  establishment,  and  tipped  right  and  left, 
so  that  there  shouldn't  be  any  doubt  about 
the  blanks  being  blanks.  I  tried  to  bluff  Mr. 
Hoover  once  and  take  out  the  car  on  pa's  day, 
but  I  bumped  into  a  regular  stone  wall.  Pa 

54- 


THE     GREAT     BUBBLE     SYNDICATE 

had  given  everybody  there  a  typewritten 
schedule  with  his  days  marked  in  red  ink,  and 
the  whole  thing  had  become  the  joke  of  the 
garage,  till  even  the  wipers  grinned  when  the 
foreman  would  call  out :  "  Syndicate  car  there, 
for  Miss  Lockwood." 

In  fact,  that  car  seemed  to  make  everybody 
mean  who  was  in  the  least  way  connected  with 
it.  I  was  a  perfect  pig  myself,  and  Harry 
and  Nelly  were  positively  worse.  It  was  one 
of  our  rules  that  the  rider  of  the  day  should 
be  answerable  for  any  troubles  or  breakages 
that  occurred  when  he  (or  she)  was  running 
the  car.  Naturally,  there  had  to  be  some  un- 
derstanding of  this  kind,  for  personality 
counts  a  lot  in  automobiling,  and  often  the 
chauffeur  is  more  to  blame  than  the  machine. 
But  it  was  awful  what  fibs  it  tempted  us  into, 
and  how  we  were  always  "  passing  the  buck," 
as  they  say  in  poker.  Nelly  got  so  treacher- 
ous that  once  she  told  me  she  didn't  care  to 
use  the  wagon  that  day,  and  would  I  like  to? 
She  had  chewed  up  the  bearings  in  a  front 
wheel  and  if  I  hadn't  suspected  her  generos- 

55 


THE     GEEAT     BUBBLE     SYNDICATE 

ity  and  taken  a  good  look  beforehand  it  would 
have  cost  me  six  dollars! 

I  guess  I  wasn't  any  better  myself,  and 
quite  a  coolness  sprang  up  all  around. 

The  repair  bills  came  to  a  good  deal  of 
money,  and  the  eighteen  dollars  a  month  we 
paid  at  the  garage  was  the  least  of  the  total. 
The  Henry  Ward  Beecher  agent  had  told 
Harry  it  cost  a  cent  a  mile  to  run  a  Fearless, 
but  if  he  had  said  a  dollar-eighty  he  would 
have  been  nearer  the  mark.  Mr.  Hoover 
said  cheerfully  he  knew  only  one  person  who 
had  got  automobiling  down  to  bed-rock, 
and  that  was  pa!  But  for  the  rest  of  the 
syndicate  it  was  their  life's  blood.  It  began 
to  dawn  on  Harry  and  Nelly  that  they  could 
never  get  married  at  all,  as  long  as  they 
stayed  in  the  combine.  It  had  cost  them  all 
the  money  they  had  saved  to  come  in,  and  now 
it  was  taking  every  cent  they  had  to  stay  in. 
Nelly  used  to  cry  about  it,  though  I  never 
noticed  that  it  made  any  difference  in  her  tak- 
ing out  the  car,  which  she  did  regularly,  and 
didn't  let  me  ride  with  her  unless  I  paid  a  dol- 

56 


THE     GREAT     BUBBLE     SYNDICATE 

lar  each  time  in  advance.     She  said  she  didn't 
know  any  other  way  of  saving  money. 

Altogether,  you  wouldn't  have  known  us 
for  the  same  three  people,  we  had  all  grown 
so  horrid  and  changed  and  mercenary.  Nelly 
was  hankering  to  get  married,  while  I  was 
crazy  to  put  in  a  radiator  with  a  forced 
water  circulation  (ours  was  a  silly  old  kind 
that  boiled  on  you),  and  Harry  wobbled  one 
way  and  the  other  as  though  he  couldn't  make 
up  his  mind  —  sometimes  agreeing  with  her, 
and  sometimes  frantic  for  a  radiator.  It 
looked  as  though  the  Fearless  was  going  to 
make  it  a  lifetime  engagement,  and  Harry 
said  ruefully  that  their  marriage  was  not  only 
made  in  Heaven,  but  would  probably  take 
place  there.  I  should  have  felt  sorrier  for 
them  if  they  hadn't  been  so  horrid  to  me  about 
it.  From  the  way  they  talked,  you'd  think  I 
had  started  the  syndicate  idea  myself  and  had 
lured  them  into  it  against  their  own  better 
judgment.  They  were  nasty  about  pa,  too, 
and  said  he  was  acting  dishonorably  with  his 
blank  days,  and  that  as  a  new  machine  always 

57 


THE     GREAT     BUBBLE     SYNDICATE 

had  to  be  broken  in  and  notoriously  cost  more 
for  repairs  the  first  year  than  ever  afterward, 
he  was  meanly  benefiting  himself  at  our  ex- 
pense. Harry  called  it  pa's  "  unearned  in- 
crement "  and  seemed  to  think  it  was  an  out- 
rage. 

They  struck  a  whole  row  of  troubles  about 
this  time,  too — stripping  a  gear,  losing  a 
front  wheel  on  the  main  street  and  winding 
up  by  fracturing  the  whole  transmission  into 
flinders.  Nelly  would  hardly  speak  to  me 
on  the  street,  and  the  Gasoline  Child  told  me 
they  would  be  cheaply  out  of  it  at  eighty  dol- 
lars. Pa  was  the  only  person  who  didn't  share 
the  general  depression.  In  fact,  he  never 
seemed  to  be  so  happy  as  when  the  car  was 
stripped  in  the  shop  and  sure  to  stay  there. 
He  used  to  go  around  there  occasionally  and 
tell  them  they  needn't  hurry  —  and  they 
didn't! 

The  new  transmission  was  of  a  better  model 
than  the  old  one,  and  I  foresaw  I  might  have 
trouble  about  it  with  the  syndicate.  It  would 
be  just  like  Harry  to  talk  about  "  unearned 

58 


THE     GREAT     BUBBLE     SYNDICATE 

increment  "  and  rope  me  in  to  pay  part.  But 
I  still  owed  on  my  leather  coat  and  wasn't  in 
the  humor  to  hand  out  a  cent.  What  is 
the  good  of  iron-clad  agreements,  anyway,  if 
people  don't  live  up  to  them  —  and  as  for 
the  transmission,  I  was  quite  satisfied  with 
the  old  one  till  they  broke  it.  So  when  Nelly 
came  around  one  night,  all  smiles  and  friend- 
liness, I  suspected  trouble  and  didn't  kiss  her 
very  hard  back.  But  she  was  in  too  high 
spirits  to  notice  anything,  and  hugged  me 
and  hugged  me  till  I  inwardly  relented  ten 
dollars'  worth  on  the  transmission  —  for 
Nelly  and  I  had  been  good  chums  before  we 
went  into  the  syndicate,  and  there  was  a  time 
when  we  would  have  shared  our  last  chocolate 
cream. 

"  Virgie,  you  can't  guess !  "  she  exclaimed, 
her  eyes  dancing. 

"  The  makers  will  do  the  right  thing  and 
won't  charge  for  it  ?  " 

This  brought  her  back  again  to  earth  at 
once. 

"  It  —  it  isn't  the  transmission  at  all,"  she 

59 


THE     GREAT     BUBBLE     SYNDICATE 

said.  "  I  am  going  to  get  married  next 
month !  " 

"  I  thought  they  insisted  that  Harry  had 
to  save  a  thousand  dollars  first." 

"  He's  got  it!  He's  got  it!  "  she  cried  de- 
lightedly. 

I  was  nearly  as  happy  as  she  was,  for  it  had 
looked  terribly  hopeless  up  till  then,  what 
with  all  the  money  they  had  put  into  the  syn- 
dicate and  the  way  the  bubble  was  gobbling  us 
up. 

"  Oh,  Nelly,  I  am  so  glad,"  I  said.  "  I'll 
put  in  that  forced  water  circulation  at  once, 
and  I'll  make  your  and  Harry's  share  of  it  a 
wedding  present ! " 

"  Oh,  I'm  out  of  the  syndicate,"  she  said. 
"  I  guess  we'd  prefer  something  for  the  flat." 

"Out  of  the  syndicate?"  I  cried. 

"  Yes,"  she  returned  brazenly.  "  Sold 
out!" 

It  took  me  a  moment  to  pull  myself  to- 
gether. I  felt  premonitions  running  all  over 
me.  I  didn't  feel  so  enthusiastic  about  their 
marriage  as  I  had  at  first  thought  I  was. 

60 


THE     GREAT     BUBBLE     SYNDICATE 

"  Oh,  Virgie,  darling,  you  won't  hate  me  ?  " 
she  asked. 

"  Not  till  I  hear  more  about  it,"  I  said. 

She  thought  to  make  it  up  by  squeezing 
my  hands.  But  it  wasn't  squeezing  that  I 
wanted,  it  was  facts.  I  drew  away  a  bit  and 
waited  for  them. 

"  Losing  that  front  wheel  was  bad 
enough,"  she  said,  "  especially  as  I  went  over 
the  dashboard  in  my  dotted  muslin  and  Harry 
has  limped  ever  since ;  but  when  the  transmis- 
sion broke  it  seemed  as  though  it  was  both 
our  hearts.  Harry  said  we  had  come  to  a 
place  where  we  had  to  choose  between  owning 
an  automobile  or  getting  married.  It  was 
perfectly  plain  we  couldn't  do  both.  He 
said  he  didn't  want  to  influence  me  either  way, 
but  that  there  was  no  good  drifting  on  and 
on,  deceiving  ourselves  and  thinking  it  would 
all  come  out  right.  Of  course,  when  he  put  it 
to  me  like  that  the  bubble  wasn't  in  it  —  and 
so  we  towed  home  for  the  last  time  and  Harry 
went  around  to  close  out  our  interest  in  the 
syndicate." 

61 


THE     GREAT     BUBBLE     SYNDICATE 

She  paused  here  and  looked  at  me,  quite 
frightened. 

"  Around  where,  exactly  ?  "  I  demanded. 

"  Well,"  she  went  on,  "  your  father  was  al- 
ways dropping  hints  that  he  would  buy  us  out 
at  the  price  we  paid,  and  so  Harry  went  to 
his  office  and  tried  to  make  a  deal.  But  your 
father  said  it  wasn't  reasonable  to  expect  him 
to  pay  for  the  new  transmission,  too  —  and 
as  Harry  didn't  want  to,  and  couldn't,  the 
whole  thing  hung  fire  till  Harry  ran  into 
Morty  Truslow  on  the  street.  Morty  offered 
him  a  thousand  dollars  right  off  for  his  half- 
interest,"  continued  Nelly ;  "  you  know  how 
free-handed  he  is,  and  rich,  and  Harry  just 
jumped  at  it  and  walked  off  with  the  check." 

"  But  you  only  paid  half  of  seven  hundred 
and  fifty  dollars  in  the  first  place ! "  I  ex- 
claimed. 

"  Well,  you  see,"  said  Nelly,  "  that  car 
has  gone  up  since.  It's  '  appreciated,'  as 
Harry  calls  it.  And  just  think  what  a  for- 
tune it  has  stood  us  in  for  repairs !  " 

"  It's  the  most  horrid,  mean,  treacherous 

62 


THE     GREAT     BUBBLE     SYNDICATE 

thing  one  person  ever  did  to  another ! "  I 
cried ;  "  you  know  I  wouldn't  speak  to  Morty 
Truslow  if  he  had  the  only  monkey-wrench  in 
the  world  and  I  was  carbonized  on  a  country 
road.  I  think  you  have  acted  detestably,  and 
so  has  he,  and  I  consider  it  downright  caddish 
for  him  to  buy  a  half -interest  in  anything  I 
am  connected  with." 

"  Oh,  Virgie,  you  don't  know  how  bad  he 
feels !  "  said  Nelly.  "  He  told  me  he  had  just 
been  breaking  his  heart,  and  that  you 
wouldn't  answer  his  letters  or  anything,  and 
if  you  would  only  let  him  talk  for  fifteen 
minutes  he'd  explain  everything  and  you'd 
take  him  back." 

"  I  won't  take  him  back,"  I  said. 

"  He  wears  a  little  flower  you  gave  him 
next  his  heart,"  continued  Nelly,  "  and  when 
he  speaks  about  you  it  is  with  tears  in  his 
eyes,  and  if  you  weren't  made  of  flint  and 
rock  candy  you'd  feel  so  sorry  for  him  you 
couldn't  sleep ! " 

"  What  did  he  offer  you  to  say  all  this, 
Nelly?  "I  demanded. 

5  63 


THE     GREAT     BUBBLE     SYNDICATE 

"  Only  a  pearl  horseshoe,"  she  returned, 
quite  unabashed.  "  Said  I  might  choose  it 
for  myself  at  Helbe's  if  I  could  persuade  you 
to  give  him  a  fifteen  minutes'  talk." 

"  I  am  sorry  about  the  pearl  horseshoe,"  I 
said  ironically,  "  but  you  might  as  well  give 
up  the  idea  right  now.  And  if  he  talked 
forty  times  fifteen  minutes  it  wouldn't  make 
the  least  difference  in  the  world.  He  thinks 
he's  so  handsome  and  so  well  off  and  that  so 
many  girls  are  crazy  about  him  that  he  only 
has  to  whistle  for  you  to  come !  " 

"  If  it  wasn't  for  Harry  —  /  would,"  she 
said ;  "  that  is,  if  he  whistled  loud  enough 
and  there  wasn't  too  much  of  a  crowd  think- 
ing he  meant  them!  Oh,  Virgie,  it's  just  like 
Faversham  to  hear  him  talk,  and  I  can't  think 
how  anybody  could  be  such  a  little  fool  as  to 
say  no ! " 

"  If  you  call  that  being  a  little  fool  I  guess 
I  am,"  I  said,  "  though  for  a  year  he  was  the 
one  man  in  my  life,  and  if  it  hadn't  been  for 
Mrs.  Gettridge  —  well,  it's  all  off  now,  and 
it's  going  to  stay  off  —  and  his  owning  half 

64 


THE     GBEAT     BUBBLE     SYNDICATE 

the  bubble  won't  make  the  least  difference  in 
the  world ! " 

"  But  you'll  come  to  my  wedding  and  be 
one  of  the  bridesmaids  ?  "  she  pleaded.  "  And 
you  won't  blame  me  too  much  for  getting  out 
of  the  syndicate  as  I  did?  I  knew  it  wasn't 
right  and  I  felt  awfully  about  it  —  but  then, 
Harry  and  I  couldn't  have  managed  other- 
wise, and  it  takes  years  and  years  to  save  a 
thousand  dollars !  "  She  looked  so  sweet  and 
pitiful  and  contrite  as  she  said  this  that  I  for- 
gave her  everything  and  hugged  her  till  she 
choked.  It  seemed  a  shame  to  spoil  her  hap- 
piness with  reproaches,  and  I  couldn't  but 
think  how  I'd  have  felt  myself  if  it  had  been 
Mor  —  Not  that  I  cared  a  row  of  pins  for 
him  now,  and  would  have  despised  myself  if  I 
did  —  but  everybody  has  moments  of  looking 
back  —  and  girls  are  such  fools  anyway. 
And,  of  course,  deep  down  somewhere  I  was 
pleased  that  he  still  cared. 


I  felt  quite  twittery  when  I  first  went  to 
65 


THE     GREAT     BUBBLE     SYNDICATE 

the  garage  after  that,  for  I  thought  Mortj 
might  pop  out  at  me  from  somewhere,  and 
though  I  wasn't  afraid  to  meet  him  and 
would  have  cut  him  if  I  had,  it  would  inevi- 
tably be  embarrassing  and  upsetting.  But  he 
had  the  good  taste  to  stay  away  on  my  days, 
and  I  never  saw  as  much  as  a  pin-feather  of 
him.  But  he  was  awfully  artful,  even  if  he 
didn't  let  himself  be  seen,  and  the  things  he 
did  to  the  car  went  straighter  to  my  heart 
than  any  words  he  could  have  spoken.  He 
put  in  a  radiator,  a  new  battery  with  a  switch, 
three  twisted  cowhide  baskets,  two  fifty-dol- 
lar acetylene  lamps,  an  odometer,  a  spark 
gap,  a  little  clock  on  the  dashboard,  and 
changed  the  tooter  for  a  splendid  French 
horn.  My  repair  bills,  too,  stopped  as 
though  by  magic,  and  the  bubble  ran  so  well 
I  guess  people  must  have  sat  up  nights  with 
it!  The  engine  would  start  at  the  half-turn 
of  the  crank;  the  clutches  were  adjusted  to  a 
hair;  she  speeded  up  to  twenty  now  on  the 
open  throttle,  which  she  had  never  done  before 
except  in  the  advertisement ;  she  was  the  show- 

66 


THE     GBEAT     BUBBLE     SYNDICATE 

iest,  smartest,  fastest  little  car  in  town,  and 
when  she  miraculously  went  into  red  leather, 
edged  with  gold  stampings,  people  used  to  fall 
over  one  another  on  the  street.  I  believe  those 
two  months  were  the  happiest  months  of  my 
life.  It  was  automobile  Heaven,  and  if  it 
hadn't  been  for  pa's  blanks  and  Morty's  half- 
interest  I  should  have  been  deliriously  happy 
every  day  instead  of  every  fourth. 

I  can't  think  how  it  happened,  but  finally 
I  got  confused  and  lost  count.  I  had  been 
away  at  my  grandmother's  for  a  week  and 
somehow  that  threw  me  out.  But  it  was  a 
Thursday  afternoon,  I  remember,  and  a 
beautiful  autumn  day,  and  I  walked  along  to 
the  garage  with  that  delicious  feeling  of  an- 
ticipation —  that  tingle  of  happiness  to  come 
—  that  made  my  heart  bound  with  love  of  the 
little  red  wagon.  (The  horse,  for  all  his 
prancing  and  social  position,  never  roused  a 
sensation  like  that  and  never  will. )  I  dodged 
a  big  touring-car  coming  out,  and  then  went 
in  on  the  floor  to  order  my  car.  I  was  just 
telling  Bert  to  get  it  out  when  I  turned 

67 


THE     GREAT     BUBBLE     SYNDICATE 

around,  and  there  was  Morty  sitting  in  it  not 
four  feet  away  from  me.  He  had  his  cap 
on  and  his  leather  coat,  and  I  saw  at  once 
that  I  had  made  a  terrible  mistake.  Before 
I  could  even  think  what  to  do  he  saw  my  pre- 
dicament and  leaped  out,  insisting  that  I 
should  take  his  place.  I  murmured  some- 
thing about  being  sorry  and  tried  to  move 
away,  but  he  caught  my  arm  and  wouldn't 
let  go.  He  was  so  eager  and  excited  and 
made  such  a  scene  that  I  allowed  myself  to  be 
bundled  into  the  car  rather  than  attract 
everybody's  attention  —  for  there  was  a 
Packard  and  a  waterless  Knox  looking  on. 
Bert  started  up  the  engine  and  I  was  just 
engaging  the  low-gear  clutch,  when  Morty 
gave  me  such  a  look  that  I  stopped  dead.  It 
seemed  too  horribly  mean  to  rob  him  of  his 
afternoon  —  besides,  when  you've  been  aw- 
fully in  love  with  a  man  —  and  his  face  — 

"  Mr.  Truslow,"  I  said,  speaking  loud,  so 
as  not  to  be  drowned  by  the  engine,  "  if  you 
promise  on  your  honor  not  to  speak  a  single 
word  to  me  —  you  can  come,  too !  "  I  had 

68 


THE     GREAT     BUBBLE     SYNDICATE 

to  say  it  twice  before  he  understood,  and  then, 
didn't  he  bound  in!  I  suppose  it  was  an 
awfully  reckless  thing  to  do,  for  whatever 
they  say  about  absence  making  the  heart  grow 
fonder,  sitting  close  is  lots  more  dangerous, 
and  I  began  to  feel  all  my  pride  and  determi- 
nation oozing  out  of  my  shoes.  It  came  over 
me  in  waves  that  I  loved  him  better  than  ever, 
and  I  stole  little  sidewise  peeps  at  him  —  and 
every  peep  seemed  to  make  it  worse.  He  be- 
longed to  a  splendid  type  —  I  had  to  admit 
that,  even  if  I  didn't  forgive  him  —  big, 
clear-eyed,  ruddy  and  broad-shouldered  — 
and  there  was  something  tremendously  com- 
pelling and  manly  about  him  that  seemed  to 
sweep  me  off  my  feet.  This  only  made  me 
hate  him  more,  for  I  didn't  see  how  I  could 
ever  love  anybody  else,  and  it's  dreary  for  a 
girl  to  have  only  a  single  man  in  her  life  and 
not  even  be  on  speaking  terms  with  that  one ! 
It  leaves  her  with  no  outlook  or  anything,  and 
one  might  as  well  be  dead  right  off.  But  you 
can't  be  long  miserable  in  a  bubble,  even  if 
you  try  —  that  is,  if  it  is  running  nicely,  de- 

69 


THE  GREAT  BUBBLE  SYNDICATE 

veloping  full  power  and  you  have  a  fat,  rich 
spark  —  and  though  I  looked  as  cold  and  dis- 
tant as  I  could,  secretly  I  think  I  never  was  so 
happy  in  my  life. 

Morty  behaved  properly  for  quite  a  while 
—  much  longer,  in  fact,  than  I  could  have 
believed  possible.  Then  he  brought  out  a 
pencil  and  began  to  write  things  on  the  back 
of  an  envelope.  I  never  moved  an  eyelash 
and  didn't  seem  to  understand  at  all  till  he 
handed  me  what  he  had  written.  I  promptly 
tore  it  up  and  threw  it  away.  But  he  found 
another  envelope  and  did  it  again,  this  time 
holding  to  it  tight  and  moving  it  before  my 
eyes.  I  nearly  ditched  the  car,  for  I  was 
running  with  an  open  throttle  and  the  grade 
was  in  our  favor.  Then  he  bent  over  and 
kissed  my  cloth  sleeve.  I  pulled  up  short 
and  gave  him  his  choice  of  either  getting  out 
or  comporting  himself  like  a  civilized  being. 
He  indicated  that  he  would  try  to  do  the  lat- 
ter, though  he  looked  awfully  savage  and 
folded  his  arms,  and  moved  as  far  away  from 
me  as  the  seat  would  allow.  I  didn't  care  — 

70 


THE  GBEAT  BUBBLE  SYNDICATE 

besides  he  was  safer  like  that  than  when  he 
was  nice  —  and  so  I  just  looked  cross,  too,  and 
speeded  up. 

I  laid  out  about  a  twenty-five  mile  spin, 
cutting  Deering  Avenue  midway,  and  branch- 
ing off  where  the  Italians  are  working  at  the 
new  trolley,  toward  Menlo,  Hatcherly  and  the 
road  through  the  woods.  We  turned  at 
the  Trocadero,  climbed  the  long  hill,  and  took 
the  river-drive  home.  You  know  how  steep  it 
is,  the  river  miles  below  and  nothing  but  the 
sheerest  wall  on  the  other  side.  But  there  is 
no  finer  road  in  Europe,  and  it's  straight 
enough  to  see  everything  ahead,  so  you  are 
free  to  coast  as  fast  as  you  please.  I  let  her 
out  at  the  top,  for  I  knew  niy  breaks  had  been 
taken  up,  and  there  were  cotter  pins  in  every 
bolt  of  the  steering  gear;  and,  as  I  said  be- 
fore, there  was  always  plenty  of  room  to  pull 
up  in  if  you  happened  to  meet  a  team.  Well, 
off  we  went  with  a  rush  that  made  our  ears 
sing,  the  little  car  humming  like  a  top. 

When  we  were  more  than  two-thirds  down 
and  going  like  the  wind  I  saw  a  nurse-girl 

71 


THE     GEEAT     BUBBLE     SYNDICATE 

near  the  bottom  pushing  a  baby  in  a  baby- 
carriage  and  coming  uphill,  with  two  little 
tots  in  red  dresses  walking  on  either  side  of 
her.  They  saw  us  the  same  moment  we  saw 
them  and  lined  up  against  the  side  —  very 
sensibly,  as  I  thought  —  and  it  was  all  so 
plain  and  right  that  I  held  on  without  a 
thought  of  danger.  When  I  was  about  ten 
yards  from  them  and  allowing  them  an  ample 
four  feet  to  the  good  —  I  mean  from  the 
steep  side,  where  they  stuck  in  a  row  like 
barnacles  —  what  did  the  little  idiots  do  but 
rush  across  the  road  like  a  covey  of  par- 
tridges, while  the  nurse-girl  stayed  where  she 
was  with  the  baby !  If  ever  a  person's  blood 
ran  cold  it  was  mine.  There  was  no  time,  no 
room,  no  anything  —  and  the  bubble  going  at 
forty  miles  an  hour !  It  seemed  like  a  choice 
between  their  lives  or  our  own.  But,  thank 
God,  I  was  game,  and  I  just  screamed  out  the 
one  word  "  jump !  "  to  Morty  and  turned  the 
machine  over  the  edge.  I  must  have  jumped, 
too,  though  I  have  no  recollection  of  it,  for 
when  I  came  to  myself  my  head  was  lying  on 

72 


THE  GREAT  BUBBLE  SYNDICATE 

Morty's  knee  and  on  looking  about  I  saw  we 
were  still  on  the  road.  The  machine?  Oh, 
it  was  two  hundred  feet  below,  smashed  to 
smithereens,  and  if  we  both  hadn't  lit  out  like 
lightning  — 

I  wasn't  a  bit  hurt,  only  bruised  and  giddy, 
and  Morty  was  throwing  the  baby's  milk  in 
my  face  to  revive  me,  while  the  baby  looked  on 
and  roared  with  displeasure  at  its  being 
wasted.  Morty  wasn't  hurt,  either,  and  if 
there  were  ever  two  people  well  out  of  a  bad 
scrape  it  was  he  and  I.  He  had  been  so 
frightened  about  me  he  was  crying;  and 
I  guess  his  tears  were  like  the  recording 
angel's,  because  they  seemed  to  blot  out  all  the 
old  quarrel  between  us.  At  least,  when  we 
got  up  and  began  to  limp  home  it  seemed  to 
me  I  didn't  mind  anything  so  long  as  he  was 
close  to  me.  He  was  shameless  enough  to 
kiss  me  right  before  the  nurse-girl,  who  was 
demanding  our  names  and  addresses  and  our 
blood  —  and  all  I  did  was  to  kiss  back.  I 
didn't  have  any  fight  left,  and  for  once  he 
had  everything  his  own  way.  Of  course,  it 

73 


THE     GEEAT     BUBBLE     SYNDICATE 

didn't  last  long  —  it  wouldn't  have  been  good 
for  him  if  it  had  —  but  even  in  six  minutes 
I  managed  to  lose  the  results  of  six  months' 
coldness.  Yet  I  was  glad  it  was  gone;  glad 
just  to  be  alive;  and  we'd  look  at  each  other 
and  laugh  like  children.  You  don't  realize 
what  a  good  old  place  the  world  is  until  you've 
taken  a  chance  on  leaving  it  and  weighed 
against  death  itself;  all  our  little  jealousies 
and  misunderstandings  seemed  too  trivial  to 
count.  It  seemed  enough  that  I  loved  him 
and  that  he  loved  me  and  that  neither  of  us 
had  broken  anything  —  bones,  I  mean.  It 
was  sad,  though,  to  think  the  poor  little  bub- 
ble was  a  goner  and  that  we'd  never  hear  its 
honest  little  pant  again. 

"  If  we  had  lived  up  to  the  comic  papers, 
Morty,"  I  said,  "  we  would  have  spiflicated  a 
red  child,  given  a  merry  toot  and  disappeared 
in  a  cloud  of  dust !  " 

"  I'm  almost  sorry  we  didn't,"  said  Morty, 
who  was  dreadfully  pale  and  always  hated 
walking.  "  We'll  know  better  next  time." 

"  There'll  be  no  next  time  for  that  bubble," 

74 


THE     GREAT     BUBBLE     SYNDICATE 

I  said  sadly.  "  It's  sparked  its  last  spark 
and  will  never  choo-choo  again ! " 

"  I  mean  our  next  car,  of  course,"  said 
Morty  (it  was  awfully  sweet  to  hear  him  say 
"  our."  And  it  took  the  sting  out  of  losing 
the  little  bubble,  especially  now  that  we're  go- 
ing to  have  another). 

"  Yesterday  Forbes  Mason  offered  me  his 
new  four-cylinder  Lafayette  for  twenty-eight 
hundred  dollars,"  said  Morty ;  "  it's  only 
been  run  five  hundred  miles,  and  I  told  him 
I'd  think  about  it." 

"  It's  suspiciously  cheap,"  I  said.  "  Sure 
he  hasn't  cut  the  cylinders  ?  " 

"  Well,  you  see,  he  broke  his  arm  cranking. 
It  back-fired  on  him,  and  his  wife  is  such  a 
little  fool  that  he  had  to  promise  to  give  up 
automobiling." 

"  They  are  splendid  cars,  with  a  record  of 
fifty  miles  on  the  track,  unstripped  and  out 
of  stock ! " 

"  And  you  shall  have  half-interest  in  it, 
Virgie!" 

"  I  never  could  pay  fourteen  hundred  dol- 

75 


THE     GEEAT     BUBBLE     SYNDICATE 

lars,  Morty,  and  I  don't  want  any  more  of 
pa's  blanks.  It's  too  exasperating." 

"  Oh,  I  meant  for  nothing !  " 

"  Then  it's  a  present  —  and  there's  always 
a  string  to  your  presents." 

"  Isn't  there  to  everybody's  ?  " 

"  Besides,  it's  an  air-cooled  motor,"  I  said, 
not  wanting  to  appear  too  eager.  "  Don't 
they  always  overheat  in  time  and  stick  the 
pistons  ?  " 

"  Not  the  Lafayette ! " 

"  Don't  tempt  me,"  I  said.  "  You  know 
I  couldn't  take  it  on  any  terms." 

"  Forced  feed  lubrication  and  direct  drive 
on  the  fourth  speed,"  he  continued,  like  a 
stage  villain  offering  diamonds  to  the  heroine. 

"  What  kind  of  a  string?  " 

"  Oh,  Virgie,  it  was  all  a  lie  about  Josie  Fel- 
ton." 

"  I  had  it  straight  from  Mrs.  Gettridge 
and  she's  Josie's  aunt  and  she  ought  to  know, 
I  guess." 

"  Mrs.  Gettridge  is  a  social  assassinator  — 
belongs  to  a  regular  Mafia  of  mischief-makers 

76 


THE     GREAT     BUBBLE     SYNDICATE 

and  old  cats  —  you  know  you  used  to  care 
once." 

"  Oh,  I  did,  Morty,  I  did.  It  nearly  broke 
my  heart,  and  I  just  wanted  to  throw  myself 
away  —  become  a  trained  nurse  or  go  in  for 
settlement  work ! " 

"  Couldn't  it  ever  be  as  it  used  to  be  ?  " 

"  I  should  want  all  the  bushings  of  phos- 
phor bronze." 

"  They  are  that  already  —  and  it's  patent- 
lock  nutted  throughout,  and  the  engine  is 
that  new  kind  that  interlocks.  I'll  draw  it 
for  you  when  I  get  home  .  .  .  and  we'll 
be  married  at  the  same  time  as  Harry  and 
Nelly." 

"  And  one  of  those  French  brass  gasoline 
tanks  that  set  flat  against  the  dash-board  and 
hold  a  two-gallon  extra  supply." 

"You  shall  have  it!" 

"  But  she  said  she  had  actually  seen  the 
letter!" 

"  It  was  all  a  lie,  every  word  of  it,"  he 
broke  out.  "  We'll  go  straight  to  her  now 
if  you  like  and  have  it  out,  and  then  you'll 

77 


THE     GREAT     BUBBLE     SYNDICATE 

see  whom  to  believe!  There  never  was  any 
letter  or  anything,  except  that  she  made  up 
her  mind  I  was  to  have  her  niece  whether  I 
wanted  to  or  not.  I  told  you  that  fifty  mil- 
lion times  in  the  letters  you  wouldn't  read 
and  sent  back  unopened.  And  it  wasn't  the 
kind  of  message  I  could  give  anybody  else  to 
take  to  you.  I  had  to  think  of  the  girl,  of 
course,  and  I  know  she  liked  me." 

"  French  tires,  of  course  ?  " 

"  Every  blessed  thing  just  the  way  you 
want  it.  The  only  thing  I  can't  see  my 
way  to  change  is  the  chauffeur,  a  poor  devil 
named  Truslow,  who's  really  an  awful  decent 
kind  of  fellow  when  you  get  to  know  him ! " 

"  Oh,  dear,"  I  said,  "  I  never  dreamed  the 
Great  Bubble  Syndicate  was  going  to  end 
like  this!" 

"End?"  cried  Morty,  putting  his  arm 
around  my  waist  as  though  he  now  had  a 
right  to.  "  It's  only  the  reorganization  of 
a  splendid  old  concern,  and  for  fourteen  hun- 
dred kisses  I  am  going  to  let  you  in  on  the 
ground  floor ! " 

78 


COAL  OIL  JOHNNY 

It  was  eleven  o'clock  in  the  forenoon,  and 
on  the  veranda  of  Mrs.  Hemingway's  house 
three  young  girls  were  gathered  in  conver- 
sation. Below  them  a  garden  ran  to  the 
water's  edge  and  gave  access  to  a  wooden 
pier  projecting  some  thirty  or  forty  feet  be- 
yond. Here,  in  a  mimic  harbor  formed  by 
a  sharp  turn  of  the  shore  and  a  line  of  piles: 
on  which  the  pier  was  supported,  rode  the 
Hemingway  fleet  at  its  moorings:  a  big 
half -decked  catboat,  a  gasoline  launch,  an  In- 
dian canoe  and  two  trim  gigs.  Here,  too* 
under  the  kindly  lee  of  a  small  boat-house, 
the  Hemingway  crew  lay  stretched  in  slumber, 
his  head  pillowed  on  an  ancient  jib,  and  his 
still-smoking  pipe  fallen  from  his  unconscious 
lips.  A  Hemingway  puppy  was  stalking 
some  Hemingway  tomtits,  in  the  bland, 

6  79 


COAL     OIL     JOHNNY 

leisurely,  inoffensive  manner  of  one  whose  in- 
tentions were  not  serious;  and  the  picture 
was  completed  by  a  Hemingway  cat,  with  a 
blue  ribbon  round  its  neck,  which  was  purring 
to  itself  in  a  serenity  that  a  stray  page 
of  a  Sunday  supplement  never  yet  afforded 
man. 

The  wide,  shady  veranda  was  articulate  of 
summer  and  girls  and  gaiety,  and  of  all  that 
pleasant,  prosperous  American  homeliness 
that  we  see  so  much  of  in  life  and  hear  GO 
little  about  in  fiction.  Hammocks,  rocking- 
chairs  and  rugs  were  scattered  about  in  a 
comfortable,  haphazard  fashion;  a  tea-table 
here  was  stacked  high  with  novels  and  maga- 
zines; a  card-table  there  bore  a  violin,  a  cou- 
ple of  tennis  racquets,  a  silver-handled  crop 
and  a  box  of  papa's  second-best  cigars. 
(The  really-truly  best  were  under  the  basket- 
work  sofa.)  There  was  also  a  sewing-ma- 
chine, a  music-stand,  a  couple  of  dogs  asleep 
on  the  floor,  a  family  Bible  full  of  pressed 
wild  flowers,  a  twenty-two-bore  rifle,  and  the 
messy  remains  of  a  Latin  exercise  that  the 

80 


COAL     OIL     JOHNNY 

SOB  of  the  house  had  recently  been  engaged 
upon  before  being  called  away  to  play  Indian. 

Dolly  Hemingway,  a  handsome,  fair- 
kuircd,  imperious-looking  girl,  was  lolling  in 
a  hammock,  directing  the  deliberations  of  Sat- 
tse  Felton,  aged  seventeen,  who  was  sitting  on 
the  floor  holding  a  dog's  head  in  her  lap,  and 
of  Grace  Sinclair,  aged  twenty,  who  was  in 
possession  of  a  stool  and  a  box  of  chocolate 
•reams.  A  very  important  matter  was  being 
discussed,  and  that  was  why  everybody  was 
talking  at  once,  and  how  it  came  about  that  a 
young  man  passed  unnoticed  through  the  cool 
darkened  rooms  of  the  house  and  appeared 
without  warning  before  the  little  group  —  a 
tall,  bulky  young  man,  with  an  air  of  diffi- 
dence on  his  honest,  sunburned  face,  and  a 
general  awkwardness  of  movement  that 
seemed  to  betray  a  certain  doubt  as  to  his 
welcome.  He  stammered  out  something  like 
"  Good  morning,"  and  then  stood  there,  hat 
in  hand,  waiting  for  the  massacre  to  begin. 

"  Mr.  Bassity ! "  exclaimed  Dolly  Heming- 
way, straightening  up  in  the  hammock,  and 

81 


COAL-     OIL,     JOHNNY 

staring  at  him  with  cold  gray  eyes.  The 
bulky  young  man  halted,  tried  to  find  some 
reassurance  in  the  no  less  chilling  faces  of 
Sattie  Felton  and  Grace  Sinclair,  and  then 
said,  "  How  do  you  do ! "  in  a  voice  of  ex- 
treme dejection. 

"  It  is  the  custom  here,"  said  Dolly  in  cut- 
ting accents,  "  for  a  gentleman,  when  he  calls 
upon  a  lady,  to  announce  himself  first  at  the 
door  —  " 

"  And  be  told  she's  out,"  said  Mr.  Bassity, 
timidly  defiant.  "  Call  next  day,  and  out, 
too !  Call  next  week  and  still  out !  " 

"  When  you  make  a  closer  study  of  the 
social  system,"  began  Miss  Hemingway  — 
"  our  social  system,  which  seems  in  vogue 
everywhere  except  the  place  you  came  from 
—  you  will  discover  that  such  little  subter- 
fuges save  painful  interviews." 

"  Oh,  now,  girls,  don't  be  hard  on  me,"  said 
Mr.  Bassity,  sitting  down  uninvited  and 
speaking  with  the  most  disarming  contrition. 
"  We  all  used  to  be  such  good  friends  once, 
and  now,  for  the  life  of  me,  I  don't  know 


COAL     OIL     JOHNNY 

what's  the  matter.  I  valued  your  friendship 
tremendously  —  valued  it  more  than  I  can 
tell,  and  now  I  am  losing  it  without  even 
knowing  why.  It  cuts  a  fellow;  it's  humili- 
ating; it  is  crool,  that's  what  it  is,  awful 
crool,  and  I'll  tell  you  the  straight-out  truth 
that  I've  cried  over  it ! " 

He  looked  quite  capable  of  crying  over  it 
again,  and  his  honest,  manly  face  bore  mut? 
witness  to  his  words.  Though  addressing 
himself  to  Miss  Hemingway,  his  eyes  were 
more  often  fixeu  on  Grace  Sinclair,  and  it 
was  plain  that  it  was  her  good  opinion  he 
valued  most.  But  she  was  as  merciless  as 
Dolly,  and  showed  not  the  least  sign  of  re- 
lenting. 

"  We  have  'decided  that  we  do  not  care 
for  the  further  pleasure  of  your  acquaint- 
ance," said  Miss  Hemingway.  "  It's  a  dis- 
agreeable thing  to  have  to  say  —  but  it's  the 
truth!  We  liked  you  at  first  because  there 
was  something  breezy  and  Western  about 
you ;  then  you  got  breezier  and  Westerner  tif 
it  was  more  than  the  traffic  could  stand." 

83 


COAL     OIL     JOHN  NT 

"  Now  see  here,"  broke  out  Mr.  Bassitj  in 
pleading  accents,  "  have  I  ever  done  anything 
caddish  or  ungentlemanly  —  intentionally,  I 
mean  —  anything  that  could  possibly  justify 

my    being   dropped    like    this  —  that   could 
» 

"  Perhaps  not  intentionally,"  interrupted 
Miss  Hemingway,  "  though  it's  no  good  your 
coming  around  here  to  say  you  didn't  know 
any  better.  You  ought  to  have  known  bet- 
ter, that's  all." 

"  Known  what  ? "  bleated  Mr.  Baasity. 
"  In  Heaven's  name,  tell  me  what?  " 

"  Oh,  it  isn't  one  thing  —  it's  a  thousand," 
said  Dolly.  "  It's  —  it's  —  general  social 
ineptitude ! " 

Mr.  Bassity  looked  more  depressed  than 
ever.  He  didn't  know  what  the  word  meant, 
and  it  seemed  to  cover  a  terrifying  accusa- 
tion. He  was  seen  silently  making  a  note  of 
it  for  a  future  reference  to  a  dictionary. 

"  Pm  just  a  rough,  uncouth  fellow,"  said 
he  at  last.  "  I  know  that  well  enough  with- 
out three  young  ladies'  telling  me  BO.  An 

84 


COAL     OIL     JOHNNY 

oil  man  —  a  successful  oil  man  —  hasn't 
much  chance  to  cultivate  the  social  graces. 
If  he  can  keep  on  the  right  side  of  common 
honesty  he  has  done  more  than  most.  I  guess 
even  our  best  people  out  there  would  give 
you  a  shock  —  and  I  don't  pretend  I  even 
ran  with  them !  " 

"  That's  the  most  redeeming  thing  you've 
said  yet,"  remarked  Grace. 

"  Oh,  they  wouldn't  have  me,"  remarked 
Coal  Oil  Johnny  with  fatal  truthfulness. 

"  All  you  need  is  toning  down,"  said  Miss 
Hemingway,  with  a  suspicion  of  kindness  in 
her  voice.  "  You're  too  exuberant,  that's  all. 
You're  always  rushing  in  where  angels  fear 
to  tread,  till  it  has  grown  on  you  like  a  habit. 
When  other  people  stop  you're  just  begin- 
ning!" 

"  Couldn't  you  give  me  another  chance  ?  " 
he  asked,  still  with  his  eyes  pathetically  on 
Grace  Sinclair's  face.  "  Just  one  more 
chance  to  try  and  hit  it  off  better  next  time? 
Now,  just  sit  up,  every  one  of  you,  and  tell 
me  frankly  what  Fve  done  to  offend  you  — 

85 


COAL     OIL     JOHNNY 

stamp  all  over  me  —  bite  my  head  off  —  and 
then  let's  begin  again  with  a  clean  slate,  and 
see  if  I  can't  buck  up." 

"  I'll  leave  it  to  the  general  vote,"  said 
Miss  Hemingway.  "  You  certainly  have  a 
very  winning  nature  in  some  ways  —  and  who 
knows  ?  —  you  might  possibly  do  better  after 
this  awful  warning.  Only  you  mustn't  come 
round  here  next  time  demanding  explana- 
tions. The  next  time  will  be  positive  and 
final.  Yes,"  she  went  on,  "  I  propose  that 
Mr.  Bassity  be  given  a  good  talking  to,  and 
then  have  his  name  put  on  the  probation  list." 

"Poor  Mr.  Bassity!"  said  Sattie  Felton. 
"  I  second  the  motion  for  reinstating  him  tem- 
porarily ! " 

Grace  Sinclair  was  not  so  quick  in  giving 
her  decision.  In  her  girlish  heart  she  en- 
joyed the  big  man's  discomfiture,  and  was 
mischievous  enough  to  prolong  his  suspense. 
She  knew  that  to  him  her  opinion  was  the 
most  important  of  all,  and  this  gave  her  an 
added  pleasure  in  withholding  her  verdict. 
All  three  looked  at  her  as  she  bent  her  pretty 

86 


COAL,     OIL     JOHNNY 

brown  head  and  seemed  to  weigh  the  ques- 
tion. She  was  a  Southerner,  and  her  French- 
Spanish  blood  betrayed  itself  in  her  grace, 
her  slender  hands  and  feet,  and  the  type  of 
her  dark  and  unusual  beauty.  She  was  more 
a  woman  than  either  Dolly  or  Sattie,  and  the 
fact  that  Mr.  Bassity  was  desperately  in 
love  with  her  fanned  within  her  breast  a 
wilful  desire  to  torment  him. 

"  Let  me  think !  "  she  said. 

"  Ton  my  soul !  —  "  began  that  unfortu- 
nate young  man,  boisterously  attempting  to 
sway  her  judgment. 

"  Hush !  "  exclaimed  Sattie  Felton. 

"  She's  thinking,"  said  Miss  Hemingway 
severely. 

Mr.  Bassity  noisily  subsided. 

"  I  don't  know  whether  it's  worth  while 
to  forgive  him,"  said  Grace  at  last.  "  He's 
so  incorrigible  —  so  wild  and  woolly  —  that 
if  you're  nice  to  him  he's  like  one  of  those 
dogs  that  want  to  jump  all  over  you !  " 

"  Oh,  Miss  Sinclair,  please,  please  — !  " 
cried  Coal  Oil  Johnny. 

87 


COAL,     OIL,     JOHNNY 

"  Well,  I  won't  hang  the  jury,"  continued 
Grace ;  "  only  it  must  be  clearly  understood 
that  we  have  the  privilege  of  making  a  few 
remarks." 

Mr.  Bassity  made  a  pantomime  of  baring 
his  bresfct. 

"Strike!"  he  said. 

"  You  first,"  said  Dolly  to  Grace. 

"  Last  Tuesday  I  was  playing  golf  at  the 
links,"  began  that  young  lady  vindictively. 
"  Mr.  Bassity  volunteered  to  call  for  me  at 
four  and  take  me  home  in  his  French  auto- 
mobile. I  knew  we  were  going  too  fast  and 
said  so  twice,  but  he  only  answered,  '  Oh, 
bother ! '  or  something  equally  polite  and  gra- 
cious. Then  as  we  raced  into  Franklin 
Street  we  found  a  rope  across  it  and  sixteen 
policemen  waiting  to  arrest  us !  Pleasant, 
wasn't  it?  —  with  a  million  people  looking  on, 
and  my  picture  next  day  in  the  paper.  I 
was  so  mortified  I  could  have  cried,  and  I 
can't  think  of  it  even  now  without  burning 
all  over." 

"  Perhaps  the  prisoner  might  care  to  offer 

88 


COAL     OIL,     JOHNNY 

some  explanation?  "  suggested  Miss  Heming- 
way. 

"  Well,  really,  it  was  most  unfortunate," 
admitted  Coal  Oil  Johnny.  "  The  fact  is,  the 
low  gear  is  chewed  up  on  that  car,  and  I've 
always  been  forced  to  run  it  on  the  interme- 
diate —  and  the  most  you  can  throttle  down 
the  intermediate  to  is  eighteen  miles  an  hour !  " 

"  The  legal  speed  being  eight,  I  believe," 
icily  interjected  Miss  Sinclair. 

"  I  don't  know  what  the  silly  law  is,"  con- 
tinued Mr.  Bassity,  "  but  the  only  way  to 
obey  it  would  be  to  get  out  and  push  the  car. 
Couldn't  ask  a  lady  to  do  that,  could  I  ?  " 

"  You  could  have  thrown  in  your  interme- 
diate and  then  thrown  it  out  again,  and  run 
on  momentum,"  said  Miss  Sinclair.  "  That's 
automobile  ABC!" 

"  Oh,  but  my  dear  girl,"  protested  Coal 
Oil  Johnny,  "  the  clutches  on  that  car  are 
something  fierce,  and  half  the  time  the  inter- 
mediate won't  mesh.  When  you're  lucky 
enough  to  get  it  in,  of  course  you  keep  it  in." 

"  Yes,  and  get  arrested,"  said  Miss  Sin- 

89 


COAL     OIL     JOHNNY 

clair,  "  and  give  your  passenger  some  dis- 
agreeable notoriety,  not  to  speak  of  shaking 
up  her  happy  home  and  getting  her  allowance 
stopped  for  a  month." 

Mr.  Bassity  looked  acutely  miserable.  To 
have  brought  penury  to  his  lady-love  struck 
him  to  the  heart. 

"  I'm  the  most  wretched  fellow  alive,"  he 
said.  "  If  ever  there  was  a  child  of  misfor- 
tune, it's  me.  I  can  only  throw  myself  on  the 
mercy  of  the  court  and  grovel  —  yes,  grovel 
—  if  you'll  show  me  a  place  to  grovel  and 
teach  me  how !  " 

"  Have  you  anything  else  against  the  pris- 
oner? "  inquired  Miss  Hemingway  of  Grace. 

"  About  sixty-five  other  complaints,"  as- 
sented that  young  lady.  "  But  I'll  let  it  go 
at  this,  which  was  the  worst  of  all." 

"  Miss  Sattie  Felton,  what  have  you 
against  the  unhappy  wretch  who  stands  trem- 
bling at  the  bar  of  justice?"  asked  the  self- 
appointed  president  of  the  court. 

"  Last  Sunday  I  was  at  the  Country  Club 
with  papa,"  said  Miss  Felton.  "  The  pris- 

90 


COAL     OIL     JOHNNY 

oner  engaged  in  an  altercation  with  my  male 
parent  on  the  subject  of  religion,  said  par- 
ent being  a  man  of  strong  views  and  short 
temper.  Said  parent,  however,  being  a  man 
of  the  world  as  well,  tried  to  evade  an  argu- 
ment and  escape,  but  was  penned  up  in  a 
corner  for  ten  purple  minutes.  Said  after- 
ward that  he  had  never  been  so  affronted  in 
all  his  life;  explodes  even  now  at  the  recol- 
lection; calls  the  prisoner  a  word  that  be- 
gins with  a  B,  contains  a  double  O  and  ends 
withR!" 

At  this  staggering  blow  poor  Coal  Oil 
Johnny  covered  his  face  with  his  hands  and 
groaned. 

"  It's  all  true,"  he  said,  "  only  I  was  kind 
of  goaded  into  it.  It  began  by  my  saying 
that  if  religious  people  would  only  be  Chris- 
tians, too,  the  world  would  be  a  better  place 
to  live  in !  " 

"  The  court  is  now  going  to  get  in  its  own 
little  knife,"  said  Miss  Hemingway.  "  The 
court,  in  a  moment  of  generous  weakness, 
verging  on  imbecility,  invited,  or,  rather, 

91 


COAL     OIL     JOHNNY 

caused  to  be  invited,  the  prisoner  to  dinner. 
Prisoner,  through  the  absence  of  one  lady 
from  the  party,  was  placed  next  to  a  distin- 
guished young  sociologist.  Of  course,  in  his 
usual  headlong  and  unrestrained  manner,  the 
prisoner  had  to  teach  the  distinguished  young 
sociologist  a  thing  or  two  he  didn't  know 
about  sociology.  Roared  at  him!  Yes,  la- 
dies of  the  jury,  positively  roared  at  him,  and 
beat  on  the  table,  extra,  with  his  fist ! " 

"  But  he  was  such  an  ass ! "  said  the  pris- 
oner. 

"  No  reason  at  all  why  you  should  roar  at 
him,"  said  the  court,  "  and  disturb  everybody 
and  make  them  feel  uncomfortable." 

"  An  awful  ass !  "  persisted  the  prisoner. 

"  The  world  is  full  of  them,"  said  the  court. 
"  If  you  were  to  roar  at  every  one  you  meet 
you'd  never  have  time  for  anything  else. 
Life  would  degenerate  into  one  long  roar. 
Everybody  knows  that  Professor  Titcombe  is 
a  ninny  and  an  idiot,  but  the  decencies  of  in- 
tercourse require  you  to  say,  '  How  nice ! ' 
or  '  How  interesting ! '  to  his  remarks. 

92 


COAL     OIL     JOHNNY 

"  But  he  had  never  even  been  in  Colorado," 
vociferated  Coal  Oil  Johnny.  "  It  was  all 
lies  and  hearsay  and  gas.  But  7  have,  and  I 
know  all  about  it,  and  if  you  want  proof  I 
have  a  scar  on  my  head  where  a  dago  shot  me 
at  Telluride!" 

"  Prisoner's  motion  to  show  scar  overruled," 
said  the  court. 

"  Isn't  it  about  time  to  let  me  off?  "  plead- 
ed Mr.  Bassity.  "  Surely  I've  listened  like  a 
lamb  to  everything  you've  said  to  me?  I've 
been  slapped  on  one  cheek  and  then  on  the 
other,  and  if  I  haven't  always  come  up  smil- 
ing it  isn't  that  I  haven't  tried.  It  stings 
a  fellow  to  hear  such  things  to  his  face;  it 
hurts  a  fellow  more  than  I  think  you  know; 
for  I  may  not  be  up  to  the  general  standard 
of  your  friends,  but  I  guess  my  feelings  are 
just  as  sensitive,  and  my  regard  and  respect 
for  all  three  of  you  is  not  a  whit  behind 
theirs.  I  dare  say  this  has  amused  you  very 
much,  and  I  don't  grudge  for  a  minute  the 
fun  you've  had  out  of  it  —  but  suppose  we 
call  it  off  now  and  be  friends  again,  and  — 

93 


COAL     OIL     JOHNNY 

and  —  talk  about  something  else ! "  He 
looked  earnestly  from  one  to  another. 

There  was  something  so  naive  and  affecting 
in  Bassity's  plea  for  mercy  that  for  a  mo- 
ment his  three  persecutors  looked  almost 
ashamed  of  themselves.  Grace  Sinclair's  eyes 
filled  with  tears,  and  she  rose  and  went  over 
to  him  and  patted  his  hand. 

"  Cheer  up,"  she  said,  smiling.  "  We've 
reinstated  you  now,  and  like  you  better  than 
we  ever  did  before." 

"  And  oo'll  be  mamma's  little  darling  and 
will  never  be  naughty  again?  "  added  Miss 
Hemingway. 

"  Poor  old  Johnny  !  "  said  Miss  Felton  sym- 
pathetically ;  "  that's  the  trouble  about  being 
a  rough  diamond  and  being  polished  while 
you  wait  —  makes  you  sorry  you  ever  came, 
doesn't  it?" 

"  Now  you  can  smoke  a  cigar,  Mr.  Bas- 
sity,"  said  Dolly,  "  and  improve  your  mind 
listening  to  us  talk !  " 

"  So  long  as  I'm  not  the  subject  of  it," 
observed  Coal  Oil  Johnny  ruefully. 

94 


COAL     OIL     JOHNNY 

"  Oh,  we  can't  bother  about  you  for  al- 
ways," said  Miss  Hemingway.  "  You've  had 
your  little  turn  and  must  now  give  way  to 
something  more  important !  " 

"  Delighted !  "  said  Mr.  Bassity. 

"  And  don't  look  as  though  your  own  ci- 
gars were  better  than  papa's,"  added  Dolly. 

"  But  they  are,"  he  retorted. 

"  Will  nothing  ever  prevent  your  speaking 
the  truth?"  cried  Miss  Sinclair.  "There 
ought  to  be  tracts  about  the  young  man  who 
always  spoke  the  truth  —  and  his  awful  end !  " 

"  Do  you  want  me  to  listen  intelligently 
or  unintelligently  ?  "  Mr.  Bassity  asked  Dolly. 

"  Oh,  any  old  way,"  she  said.  "  We  don't 
mind  particularly  which." 

"  But  you  might  tell  me  what  the  next 
topic's  about,"  he  said.  "  It  might  improve 
my  mind  more,  you  know,  to  have  some  glim- 
mering of  what's  going  on.  Possibly  —  I 
say  it  with  all  diffidence  —  possibly  I  might 
be  able  to  contribute  some  valuable  sugges- 
tions." 

At  this  there  arose  such  a  chorus  of  in- 

7  95 


COAL    OIL     JOliNNT 

credulity  that  even  the  dogs  jumped  up  and 
barked. 

"  It'll  be  a  long  time  before  you'll  ever  pay 
your  social  way,"  said  Miss  Hemingway  cruel- 
ly. "  In  the  meanwhile  you're  a  social  pau- 
per, living  on  crusts,  and  the  most  becoming 
thing  you  can  do  is  to  sit  very  silent  and 
grateful  and  self-effacing." 

"  Yep,"  said  Coal  Oil  Johnny,  pretending; 
to  gulp  down  a  manly  emotion.  "  Yep,  kind 
lady,  and  God  bless  your  purty  face,  and  if  a 
lifetime  of  humble  devotion  and  —  " 

"  We  all  three  have  to  do  something  for 
the  St.  John's  Home  for  Incurable  Children," 
interrupted  Dolly,  "  and  the  question  is, 
what?" 

"  Simplest  thing  out,"  said  Mr.  Bassity, 
feeling  for  his  pocketbook. 

"  That's  just  what  we're  not  going  to  do," 
continued  Dolly.  "  It's  horrid  to  go  around 
dunning  people  for  subscriptions,  and  being 
ten  dollars  nice  to  them  for  three  dollars  and 
fifty  cents  cash.  We're  all  pledged  to  earn 
some  money  —  reallj,  truly  earn  it  —  and 

96 


COAI,     OIL     JOHNNY 

every  one  of  us  is  going  to  get  out  and 
hustle,  and,  of  course,  we  want  to  arrange 
it  so  that  none  of  us  three  will  overlap.  Mjr 
own  idea  is  dog-thinning ! " 

"  Dog-what?  "  ejaculated  Coal  Oil  Johnny. 

"  Most  people's  dogs  are  too  fat,"  ex- 
plained Miss  Hemingway.  "  Most  owners 
are  so  slack  and  good-natured  that,  though 
they  know  they  are  their  own  dogs'  worst  ene- 
mies, they  weakly  go  on  pampering  them  in 
spite  of  their  better  judgment.  I  am  going1 
to  reduce  dogs  for  ten  dollars  a  dog  —  not 
brutally,  like  a  vet.,  who  kicks  them  into  a  cel- 
lar and  leaves  them  there  —  but  giving  up 
my  whole  time  to  it  for  a  month.  Plain  living, 
lots  of  exercise,  sympathy,  tact,  and  all  the 
comforts  of  home!  I've  already  got  the 
promise  of  four,  and  there's  a  Russian  poo- 
dle, besides,  and  a  dachshund,  who  are  trying 
to  make  up  their  minds." 

"  I  wish  I  could  have  thought  of  anything 
so  original,"  cried  Sattie  Felton  mournfully. 
"  It  seems  so  commonplace  just  to  work  in 
papa' a  office  for  two  weeks,  doesn't  it?  " 

97 


COAL     OIL     JOHNNY 

"'Specially  the  way  you'll  work!"  ex- 
claimed Grace  Sinclair. 

"  I  am  going  to  help  Miss  Drayton  in  the 
filing  department,"  said  Sattie.  "  Put  a  letter 
from  an  F  man  into  an  F  drawer,  and  from 
a  G  man  into  a  G  drawer,  and  from  an  H 
man  into  an  H  drawer,  and  from  an  I  man 
into  an  I  drawer  —  " 

"  Oh,  stop ! "  cried  Dolly  Hemingway, 
warningly. 

"  And  from  a  J  man  into  a  J  drawer,"  con- 
tinued Sattie  drearily,  "  and  from  a  K  man 
into  — " 

The  hurried  passing  of  the  chocolate 
creams  in  her  direction  brought  about  a  wel- 
come silence. 

"  What's  your  plan,  Miss  Sinclair  ?  "  in- 
quired Mr.  Bassity. 

"  Oh,  Grace  has  a  snap,"  said  Sattie  in 
thick,  chocolate-cream  accents. 

"  My  Despardoux  car !  "  exclaimed  Grace. 
"  It  holds  five,  you  know,  and  I'm  going  every 
day  to  the  I.  B.  &  Q.  depot  and  take  passen- 
gers. Hang  out  a  little  card:  Beautiful 


COAL     OIL     JOHNNY 

Stackport,  Two  Hours'  Ride  for  One  Dollar ; 
Children  Half-Price!" 

"No  chauffeur?"  asked  Coal  Oil  Johnny. 

"  Of  course  not.  In  that  case  it  would  be 
the  money  he  earned  —  not  mine !  " 

"  I  don't  think  I'd  do  that,"  said  Coal  Oil 
'Johnny. 

"  It  matters  so  little  what  you  think !  "  said 
Grace. 

"But  all  alone?"  objected  Bassity. 

"  I  told  you  it  holds  five,"  said  Miss  Sin- 
clair. 

"  I  shall  make  it  a  point  to  go  every  trip," 
said  Coal  Oil  Johnny. 

"  Indeed  you  shan't,"  protested  Grace. 
"  The  basis  of  the  whole  idea  is  that  no 
friends  are  allowed.  It's  to  be  genuine 
money-making  without  favoritism  or  the  per- 
sonal element,  and  I  think  it's  splendidly  orig- 
inal and  American." 

Coal  Oil  Johnny  looked  at  her  and  slowly 
shook  his  head. 

"  Don't  do  it,"  he  said  seriously.  "  Please 
'don't  do  it." 

99 


COAL     OIL     JOHNNr 

"  But  I  please  will,  thank  you,"  she  re- 
turned ;  "  and  I'm  going  to  make  more  money 
out  of  it  than  anybody." 

"  What  does  your  father  say  ?  "  he  asked, 
"  Offered  me  a  hundred  dollars  not  to !  " 
"  Then  I  suppose  it  wouldn't  be  any  good 
offering  two  hundred." 

"  Not  in  the  least  —  nor  two  thousand !  " 
Coal  Oil  Johnny  sighed,  and  puffed  away 
at  his  cigar. 

"  See  here,"  he  said  at  last,  "  why  wouldn't 
it  be  a  bright  idea  to  give  me  lessons  —  at 
so  much  a  lesson  —  on  how  to  behave,  and 
that  kind  of  thing!" 

Sattie  Felton  clapped  her  hands  together 
excitedly. 

"  I  take  him,  I  take  him ! "  she  cried.  "  I 
spoke  first,  girls,  and  it  beats  filing  all  hol- 
low." In  her  eagerness  she  jumped  up  and 
ran  to  Coal  Oil  Johnny,  as  though  to  hold 
him  tight  and  prevent  his  being  snatched 
away  from  her  by  the  others.  Poor  Bassity 
had  hoped  to  fall  into  other  hands,  and  his 
face  showed  his  disappointment. 

100 


COAL     OIL     JOHNNY 

"  I  hoped  —  "  he  stammered.  "  I  thought 
perhaps  —  " 

"  No,  Sattie  spoke  first,"  said  Miss  Hem- 
ingway, detecting  incipient  rebellion,  "  and, 
anyway,  she  deserves  to  have  you,  for  her 
plan  wasn't  any  good  and  was  hardly  better 
than  getting  a  present  of  the  money  from 
her  father ! " 

"  What  can  I  charge  him  ?  "  exclaimed  Sat- 
tie. "  What  are  lessons  worth,  Dolly  —  good 
long  ones  ?  " 

"  Five  dollars  each,  or  fifty  for  a  course 
of  twelve,"  replied  that  reliable  authority. 
"  Diploma,  elegantly  tinted  for  framing,  one 
dollar!" 

"  It  isn't  too  much,  is  it?  "  asked  Sattie 
anxiously  of  Mr.  Bassity.  "  I  don't  want  to 
rob  you,  you  know,  and  even  half  would  be 
more  than  I  could  get  by  filing." 

"  Oh,  it's  cheap,"  said  Coal  Oil  Johnny, 
attempting  to  seem  cheerful.  "  I  never  ex- 
pected to  become  a  social  favorite  for  any- 
thing under  a  hundred.  Only  I  wish  you 
wouldn't  try  your  way,"  he  added  aside  to 

101 


COAL     OIL     JOHNNY 

Miss  Sinclair.  "  I  mean  it  in  all  earnestness. 
If  I  had  a  sister  —  " 

"  You'd  keep  her  in  a  red  morocco  case, 
and  only  show  her  in  peeps  to  people  of 
guaranteed  respectability,"  said  Grace,  con- 
tinuing his  sentence  for  him.  "  That's  al- 
ways the  way  with  imaginary  sisters.  But 
the  real  ones  like  to  jump  in  and  help  the 
old  world  along !  " 

"  Oh,  but  do  take  a  chauffeur,"  he  plead- 
ed. 

Miss  Sinclair  gave  him  a  mocking  smile. 

"  Would  you  mind  my  running  my  own 
little  show  in  my  own  little  way  ?  "  she  ob- 
served sweetly. 

He  blew  out  a  large  smoke-ring  and  did 
not  reply.  His  honest,  sunburned  face  as- 
sumed a  far-away  expression.  Coal  Oil 
Johnny  was  thinking! 

In  the  line  of  cabs  and  omnibuses  that 
stood  outside  the  I.  B.  &  Q.  depot  was  a  Des- 
pardoux  car,  dazzling  the  eye  with  brass,  and 
reflecting  the  passing  throng  in  the  deep,  ruby 

102 


COAL     OIL     JOHNNY 

red  of  its  highly  polished  surface.  Its  only 
occupant  was  Miss  Grace  Sinclair,  suffocat- 
ing in  a  leather  coat,  and  with  her  shy,  pretty 
face  well  concealed  behind  an  automobile 
mask.  At  the  side  of  the  car,  neatly  pinned 
to  one  of  the  long  rawhide  baskets,  was  the 
following  invitation  to  the  public : 

BEAUTIFUL  STACKPORT 

TWO  HOURS'  RIDE  FOR  $1 

CHILDREN  1/2  PRICE 

But  the  public  who  had  possibly  already 
seen  beautiful  Stackport  for  themselves,  or 
who,  maybe,  were  withheld  by  the  lack  of  the 
necessary  dollar  —  the  public,  jostling  past 
in  an  intermittent  stream,  and  coy  as  always 
in  the  investment  of  its  cash,  disregarded 
the  allurements  of  the  Despardoux,  and  scarce- 
ly deigned  even  to  look  its  way.  A  few  of  its 
members,  however,  of  a  chatty  and  mechanical 
turn,  were  willing  to  volunteer  a  vast  deal  of 
random  conversation  with  less  than  no  en- 
couragement ;  but  the  man  with  the  dollar,  the 
man  who  desired  to  see  beautiful  Stackport, 

103 


COAL     OIL     JOHNNY 

the  man  who  thirsted  for  a  two  hours'  ride  — 
children  half-price  —  was  yet  to  come. 

Grace  Sinclair  had  waited  an  hour.  Her 
first  eager  expectancy  had  given  way  to  a 
heartbreaking  consciousness  of  failure.  She 
felt  herself  humiliated,  less  for  herself  than 
for  her  Despardoux.  She  had  thrown  down 
her  pearls,  and  the  swine  (true  to  tradition) 
were  treating  them  in  the  time-honored  man- 
ner. At  last,  when  hope  was  nearly  dead 
within  her  breast,  it  was  suddenly  revived  by 
the  appearance  of  a  rustic  gentleman,  who, 
stopping  as  though  he  had  received  a  gal- 
vanic shock,  opened  his  mouth  as  he  slowly 
spelled  out  the  notice  on  the  basket.  It  was 
plain  he  was  from  the  country,  for  his  red- 
dish whiskers  were  untrimmed,  his  hair  long 
and  straggling,  his  clothes  of  an  extraordi- 
nary and  antique  design;  and,  moreover,  un- 
der his  arm  he  carried  a  coal-oil  box,  slatted 
across  the  front,  which  contained  a  live  roos- 
ter. It  was  a  pity  that  so  sturdy  a  repre- 
sentative of  the  agricultural  classes  should 
have  worn  spectacles,  and  blue  ones  at  that, 

104 


COAL     OIL,     JOHNNY 

and  he  had  a  troubled,  peering,  blind  look 
that  caused  Grace  a  momentary  pang.  But 
he  seemed  a  jolly,  hearty  fellow  in  spite  of 
his  infirmity,  and  coming  up  to  her  he  gave 
her  a  broad  and  confidential  smile. 

"  About  this  burd,"  he  began,  in  a  rich, 
friendly  drawl,  indicating  the  rooster.  "Be 
there  any  trouble  about  the  burd  coming, 
too?" 

"  Not  a  particle,"  said  Miss  Sinclair. 

"  Hey?  "  said  the  stranger.     "  Hey?  " 

"  Glad  to  have  it,"  said  Miss  Sinclair,  try- 
ing to  suit  her  English  to  the  intelligence 
of  the  plain  people. 

"  But  no  monkey  business  ?  "  said  the  gen- 
tleman from  the  country.  "  No  half-price 
rung  on  me  later  ?  No  extry  for  live  stock  ?  " 

"  One  dollar,  and  no  charge  for  rooster," 
said  Grace  in  her  most  matter-of-fact  tones. 

From  a  capacious  and  inner  pocket  the 
stranger  produced  a  venerable  wallet,  and 
from  the  venerable  wallet  a  dollar  bill. 

"  A  lot  of  money  for  just  whizzing  through 
the  air,"  he  remarked  genially,  handing  it  to 

105 


COAL     OIL     JOHNNY 

her.  "  I  could  fall  off  my  barn  for  nothing, 
and  as  like  as  not  be  less  hurt  than  when 
you've  got  through  with  me !  " 

"  I'll  get  you  back  all  right,"  said  Miss 
Sinclair. 

The  stranger  showed  symptoms  of  wanting 
to  climb  into  the  tonneau  by  way  of  the 
mud-guard ;  and  his  enthusiasm  was  unbound- 
ed when  he  was  directed  to  the  door. 

"  Gosh !  "  he  exclaimed,  seating  himself  lux- 
uriously on  the  cushions.  "  Gosh !  but 
they've  got  these  things  down  fine!  I  never 
read  the  Poultry  Gazette  of  a  Saturday  night 
without  saying  to  myself,  what  next  ?  Every 
day  some  new  way  of  being  killed,  or  some 
old  way  improved !  My !  but  this  is  the  dan- 
diest of  all!" 

"  There  isn't  the  least  danger  if  people  are 
careful,"  said  Grace,  gazing  out  of  the  corner 
of  her  eye  at  three  very  loud  and  offensively 
jocular  young  men,  their  straw  hats  tilted  at 
the  back  of  their  heads,  who  had  also  been 
arrested  by  the  notice  on  the  basket.  They 
were  flashily  dressed,  with  race-tout  written 

106 


COAL     Oil,     JOHNNY 

all  over  them,  and  their  keen,  impudent,  tal- 
lowy faces  filled  her  with  sudden  misgiving. 

"  Let's  try  the  old  hell-wagon,"  said  one. 

"  If  people  are  only  careful,"  repeated 
Grace  forlornly. 

"  I  dug  four  automobeelists  out  of  a  ditch 
once,"  observed  the  rural  gentleman.  "  One 
had  his  leg  broke,  and  the  others  were 
scratched  something  awful  —  but  perhaps 
they  weren't  careful !  " 

"  Say,  we  want  to  see  beautiful  Stackport," 
said  one  of  the  touts,  clambering  into  the 
front  seat  beside  Grace. 

"  Get  out  of  that  and  give  your  place  to 
a  handsomer  man,"  cried  another,  trying  to 
pull  him  out  by  the  legs. 

The  scuffle  ended  in  the  triumph  of  num- 
ber one,  who  turned  to  Grace  and  addressed 
her  in  a  hoarse,  ironical  voice. 

"  Never  you  mind  them,"  he  said. 
"  They're  only  a  pair  of  cheap  skates  who've 
won  out  a  little  on  the  track,  and  are  blowing 
it  in." 

"  Cock-a-doodle-doo !  "   exclaimed   another, 

107 


COAL     OIL     JOHNNY 

poking  his  fingers  through  the  bars  at  tie 
rooster. 

"  Wind  her  up,  young  chafer !  "  exclaimed 
the  third. 

"  The  fare  is  one  dollar  in  advance,"  said 
Grace  Sinclair,  whose  heart  was  sinking  with- 
in her. 

Then  there  ensued  a  humorous  altercation 
in  which  they  tried  to  beat  her  down  to  sev- 
enty-five cents.  But  Grace,  remaining  firm, 
finally  received  her  three  dollars,  though  they 
made  it  a  point  of  honor  to  pay  her  in  the 
smallest  change  they  could  muster.  One  fun- 
maker  turned  in  three  post-cards  and  a  two- 
cent  stamp ;  while  another  convulsed  the  com- 
pany on  the  curb,  now  five  deep  and  swelling 
rapidly,  by  volunteering  to  give  his  necktie 
in  lieu  of  a  quarter.  It  was  no  small  relief 
to  Grace  when  at  last  they  rode  out  of  the 
depot  amid  the  cheers  of  the  multitude,  and 
took  their  swift  way  down  Fairfield  Avenue. 
But  the  three  young  rowdies,  far  from  sub- 
siding, egged  one  another  on  to  fresh  enor- 
mities. They  would  whoop  at  every  passing 

108 


COAL     OIL     JOHNNY 

automobile,  shout  audible  remarks  about  the 
personal  appearance  of  its  occupants,  tell  an 
old  gentleman,  cautiously  picking  his  way 
across  the  street,  to  skin  out  or  they'd  take  his 
leg  off!  It  was  a  wild  and  mortifying  pro- 
gress, and  as  the  streets  gradually  gave  way 
to  country  roads,  and  Grace  anticipated  that 
the  worst  was  over,  the  three  young  men 
discovered  a  new  means  of  making  themselves 
objectionable.  They  insisted  on  stopping  at 
every  roadhouse,  tooting  loudly  for  the  bar- 
tender to  come  out  and  serve  them,  and  toss- 
ing off,  in  the  course  of  a  dozen  miles,  an 
uncountable  number  of  glasses  of  beer. 

Had  it  not  been  for  the  presence  of  the 
farmer,  seated  placidly  in  the  tonneau  of  the 
car  with  the  rooster  on  his  lap,  Grace  would 
have  been  terrified  at  her  predicament.  But 
his  large,  friendly  bulk,  his  heavy  shoulders, 
his  big  hands  and  honest  face  were  immensely 
comforting  to  her.  He  resisted  all  the  im- 
portunities of  the  others  to  drink  with  them, 
refusing  with  the  greatest  good-nature,  and 
maintaining  throughout  a  certain  aloofness 

109 


COAL     OIL     JOHNNY 

and  detachment.  They  called  him  Judge 
Hayseed,  and  guyed  him  mercilessly ;  but  his 
deep,  hearty  laugh  never  showed  the  least 
sign  of  resentment,  even  when  imaginary  mis- 
adventures, of  the  blow-out-the-gas  order, 
were  fathered  on  him. 

In  the  midst  of  an  unceasing  and  vocifer- 
ous hilarity,  as  they  were  bowling  along  at 
twelve  miles  an  hour,  which  Grace  would  have 
made  twenty  if  the  engine  hadn't  worked  so 
queerly,  she  felt  the  sharp  dig  of  a  finger 
against  her  back,  and  one  of  the  young  men 
cried  out :  "  Say,  young  chafer,  you've 
plunked  a  tire !  " 

She  stopped  the  car  and  got  out,  and  there, 
sure  enough,  one  of  the  rear  tires  presented 
itself  to  her  view  in  a  state  of  melancholy 
collapse.  It  had  picked  up  a  horseshoe  to- 
gether with  the  three  jagged  nails  adhering 
to  it,  and  was  patently,  hopelessly,  irretriev- 
ably punctured.  Grace  had  seen  a  hundred 
repairs  made  on  the  road,  but  up  to  now 
she  had  never  put  her  hands  to  the  task  her- 
self. She  brimmed  over  with  the  most  cor- 

110 


COAL     OIL     JOHNNY 

rect  theory,  but  had  invariably  relegated  the 
practice  to  a  skilful  young  man.  As  she  de- 
jectedly scanned  the  faces  of  her  passengers, 
and  met  nothing  in  return  but  blank  and  dis- 
pirited stares,  she  manfully  got  out  her  little 
jack  and  started  in  on  her  own  account.  But 
she  had  hardly  raised  the  wheel  free  from 
the  ground,  and  was  in  the  act  of  unscrewing 
the  valve,  when  the  wrench  was  suddenly  tak- 
en out  of  her  hand  by  Judge  Hayseed,  who 
asked  in  a  very  businesslike  manner  if  there 
was  an  inner  tube  in  the  kit. 

"  I  took  notice  of  a  feller  doing  this  on 
my  farm  once,"  he  drawled,  "  and  it's  kind 
of  stuck  in  my  head  ever  since."  It  had  cer- 
tainly stuck  remarkably  well,  for  the  farmer 
attacked  the  shoe  with  the  precision  of  a 
veteran.  Loosening  the  lugs,  and  using  the 
two  strippers  against  each  other  with  adroit- 
ness and  strength,  he  quickly  reached  the 
point  where  he  could  easily  draw  out  the 
inner  tube. 

When  the  tire  was  pumped  up,  and  Grace 
was  again  about  to  take  her  place  at  the 

8  111 


COAL     OIL     JOHNNY 

steering-wheel,  the  farmer  sprang  a  fresh 
surprise. 

"  Hold  on  a  minute,"  he  said.  "  What's 
been  making  you  miss  so  horribly  on  the  off 
cylinder  ?  " 

"  Oh,  the  whole  engine  has  been  acting  like 
the  dickens,"  she  returned  distressfully.  "  It 
hasn't  been  developing  half  its  power.  It's 
in  one  of  its  mean  humors  to-day,  and  behav- 
ing like  a  pig." 

"  Couldn't  you  take  off  that  front  thing 
and  let's  see  what's  the  trouble  ?  "  said  the 
countryman,  jumping  back  into  his  drawl. 

And  then,  wrench  in  hand,  he  made  a  pro- 
longed examination  of  the  machinery.  Then 
he  turned  over  the  engine  and  listened;  then 
he  turned  over  the  engine  again  and  listened 
some  more.  Then  he  crawled  in  under  the 
wagon,  reappearing  with  a  lick  of  grease  over 
one  eye. 

"  It  gets  me,"  he  said.  "  I  ran  a  little  oil 
out  of  the  crank-case  on  general  principles, 
and  chased  up  the  magnets  —  but  everything's 
tip-top  as  far  as  I  can  see ! " 

112 


COAL     OIL     JOHNNY 

"  Suppose  you  crank  up  and  let's  try 
again,"  said  the  girl. 

But  the  car  went  worse  than  ever.  In- 
stead of  missing  occasionally  the  engine  be- 
gan to  run  now  in  gasps.  Just  when  Grace 
waited  for  it  to  die  altogether  it  would  give 
another  cough  and  take  another  spurt  ahead, 
progressing  the  car  in  a  series  of  agonizing 
little  rushes,  every  one  promising  to  be  the 
last.  To  add  to  Grace's  discomfiture  there 
was  a  fairly  steep  hill  looming  in  front  of 
them,  and  she  foresaw  their  being  stalled  at 
the  bottom.  They  made  another  stop.  A 
pair  of  new  spark-plugs  was  put  in,  but,  in- 
stead of  improving,  the  gasping  got  gaspier 
than  ever.  Still  another  stop,  to  replace  the 
high  tension  wires. 

But  no  improvement  was  effected.  A 
weird,  whizzling  sound  added  itself  to  the 
other  noises.  Every  gasp  brought  them  near- 
er the  hill,  where,  at  the  foot,  the  engine 
gave  one  awful  hiccough  and  died  dead. 

"  We  might  manage  to  crawl  home  the 
way  we  came,"  said  Grace,  at  her  wits'  end. 

113 


COAL     OIL     JOHNNY 

"  No,  there's  only  one  thing  to  do,"  said 
the  farmer  decisively,  "  and  that's  to  start  all 
over  again  and  ferret  out  the  trouble." 

He  got  out  again.  So  did  Grace.  So  did 
the  three  touts.  So  did  the  rooster.  It  was 
a  depressing  moment. 

Grace  took  off  her  long  coat,  laid  it  on  one 
side  of  the  road,  and  deposited  her  cap,  mask 
and  gauntlets.  It  would  take  time  to  put  the 
car  to  rights,  and  she  didn't  wish  to  be  ham- 
pered. Her  dark,  glowing,  girlish  face  came 
as  a  revelation  to  the  three  sports.  She  had 
been  hidden  behind  so  much  glass  and  leather 
that  the  transformation  was  startling.  The 
horsy  gentlemen  uttered  murmurs  of  surprise 
and  gratification.  One  of  them  sidled  up  to 
her  with  a  leer. 

"  We've  had  a  bum  ride  in  your  bum  wag- 
on," he  said,  "  and  now  you've  stuck  us  down 
here  nine  miles  from  the  nearest  beer !  You've 
a  lot  to  answer  for,  you  have." 

"  I  shall  certainly  return  your  money," 
returned  Grace  coldly.  "  I  can't  do  more 
than  that,  can  I  ?  " 

114 


COAL     OIL     JOHNNY 

"  Oh,  yes,  you  can,  you  wicked  little  chaf- 
er," he  said,  giving  a  wink  over  his  shoulder 
to  his  companions.  "  What's  the  matter  with 
a  kiss  ?  "  And  with  that  he  passed  his  arm 
around  her  waist. 

What  happened  next  happened  quicker 
than  it  takes  to  write  it.  The  farmer's  right 
hand  descended  on  the  young  man's  collar, 
and  his  left  executed  a  succession  of  slaps  on 
the  young  man's  countenance,  which,  for  vig- 
or and  swiftness,  could  not  have  been  done 
better  by  machinery.  Then  he  trailed  him  to 
one  side  of  the  road,  still  shaking  him  in  an 
iron  grasp,  and  kicked  him  into  the  ditch. 

"  Help ! "  roared  the  young  man  repeat- 
edly in  the  course  of  these  proceedings. 
"  Help ! " 

This  brought  to  the  rescue  his  two  friends, 
who,  for  the  last  instant,  had  been  too  spell- 
bound to  move.  The  farmer  squared  his  fists 
and  received  the  new-comers  on  his  knuckles. 
He  was  a  clean  hitter,  and  from  the  way  he 
pirouetted  and  skipped  you  would  have  said 
he  could  dance,  too.  The  three  young  sports, 

115 


COAL     OIL     JOHNNY 

considerably  the  worse  for  wear,  fled  pell-mell 
for  the  barbed-wire  fence  that  bordered  the 
road,  and  went  over  it  in  the  twinkling  of 
an  eye.  Only  a  few  bits  of  what  they  would 
probably  have  called  "  nobby  pants,"  speckled 
here  and  there  on  the  barbs,  betrayed  to  later 
wayfarers  this  new  instance  of  man's  inhu- 
manity to  man. 

"  Do  you  know,  we  have  never  looked  at 
the  contact-box,"  said  the  farmer,  returning 
to  the  car  quite  calmly  to  take  up  the  inter- 
rupted thread  of  his  conversation. 

The  tears  were  streaming  down  Grace'9 
face,  and  her  voice  was  scarcely  controllable. 

"  It's  a  b-brush  s-s-system,"  she  said,  "  and 
it  has  always  worked  b-b-beautifully,  and  I 
never  could  have  f-f -forgiven  myself  if  they 
had  h-h-hurt  you !  " 

The  farmer  did  not  hear  more  than  half  the 
sentence.  He  was  on  his  knees  peering  down 
into  the  works.  Suddenly  he  raised  his  head 
with  an  expression  of  triumph. 

Bing !  A  stone  struck  one  of  the  kerosene 
lamps  with  a  vicious  crash. 

116 


COAL     Oil,     JOHNNY 

Bing!  Another  just  missed  the  country- 
man's rumpled  hair. 

Bing!  A  mud-guard  shook  with  a  loud 
and  tinny  reverberation. 

The  enemy,  lined  up  in  the  neighboring 
field,  and  yelling  shrilly,  were  opening  up  a 
rear-guard  action  with  artillery. 

"  The  contact-box  is  upside  down,"  cried 
the  farmer.  "  I  can't  see  how  it  ever  worked 
at  all.  Yank  me  out  a  screw-driver  quick !  " 

The  contact-box  was  on  the  exposed  side. 
The  farmer  tried  to  hunch  himself  into 
the  least  compass  possible,  but  his  broad 
back  and  powerful  frame  interfered  with  his 
efforts  to  make  a  human  hedgehog  of  himself. 
He  was  hit  twice,  once  by  a  grazing  shot  that 
brought  out  blood  on  his  cheek,  the  other  a 
stinger  on  the  hand. 

"  Scratch  up  a  few  rocks,"  he  called  to 
Grace,  doggedly  continuing  his  work,  and 
keeping  a  careful  eye  on  the  screws  he  was 
taking  out. 

She  got  a  dozen  or  so,  and  passed  them 
over  to  him  in  a  piece  of  chamois  leather  taken 

117 


COAL     OIL     JOHNNY 

from  the  tool  kit.  He  caught  it  up  and  ran 
for  the  fence,  the  enemy  retiring  precipitately 
out  of  range.  But  if  he  made  no  bull's-eyes 
he  had  a  pleasant  sense,  for  a  moment  or  two, 
of  dominating  the  situation.  Then  he  re- 
turned hurriedly  to  the  car. 

"  I  wonder  if  you  and  I  couldn't  push  her 
around,"  he  said  to  Grace.  "  They'll  be  back 
again  in  a  minute,  and  then  it  will  be  alto- 
gether too  sunny  on  this  side."  The  pair  of 
them  laid  on  to  the  spokes  of  the  driving- 
wheels,  and  with  a  yeo-heave-yeo  managed  to 
head  the  Despardoux  in  the  direction  of  its  na- 
tive Stackport.  Then  the  farmer  settled  to 
work  again,  Grace  scurried  about  searching 
for  ammunition,  and  the  three  young  touts 
rained  shower  on  shower  of  stones.  If  ever 
delicate  adjustments  were  made  under  difficul- 
ties, it  was  on  that  Despardoux  on  that  fateful 
occasion.  The  only  alleviation  of  an  other- 
wise intolerable  situation  was  the  magnificent 
behavior  of  the  contact-box,  which  now,  right 
side  up  and  readjusted,  showed  every  symp- 
tom of  meaning  to  do  its  duty. 

118 


COAL     OIL     JOHNNY 

It  was  anxiously  put  to  the  test,  and,  on 
the  engine  being  started,  the  farmer  and  Grace 
were  rewarded  by  the  chippetty,  chippetty, 
chippetty,  chippetty  of  perfect  sparking  and 
combustion. 

The  farmer  rolled  back  the  enemy,  recov- 
ered Grace's  coat  and  his  own  rooster,  seated 
himself  at  the  wheel,  gave  the  girl  a  hand 
in,  threw  in  his  clutches  and  speeded  up. 

"  Slow  down !  "  cried  Grace.  "  Slow  down, 
please.  I  want  to  leave  their  horrid  money 
on  the  road." 

"  Not  on  your  life,"  said  the  farmer. 
"  That  three  dollars  belongs  to  the  St.  John's 
Home  for  Incurable  Children !  " 

"  You  oughtn't  to  know  anything  about  the 
St.  John's  Home,"  said  Grace. 

"Oh,  I  forgot  —  I  don't,"  he  retorted 
brazenly.  "  Only  that  three  dollars  is  going 
to  stay  on  board  this  car.  If  anybody  ever 
earned  three  dollars  by  the  sweat  of  their  brow 
I  guess  it  was  you  and  me ! " 

Grace  put  her  hands  up  to  his  head  and 
deliberately  drew  off  his  hat,  drew  off  his  red 

119 


COAL     OIL     JOHNNY 

wig,  drew  off  his  red  whiskers,  and  tossed  them 
all  back  into  the  tonneau. 

"  Are  you  sorry  I  came? "  said  Coal  Oil 
Johnny. 

"  There  are  some  emotions  that  can  not 
be  put  into  words,"  she  answered.  "  I  won't 
try  to  say  anything.  I  can't.  But  if  I 
should  ever  seem  unkind,  or  distant,  or  forget- 
ful, or  anything  but  the  joy  of  your  whole 
future  existence  —  just  you  say  contact-box, 
and  I'll  melt!" 


120 


I  could  have  taken  "  No  "  like  a  man,  and 
would  have  gone  away  decently  and  never 
bothered  her  again.  I  told  her  so  straight 
out  in  the  first  angry  flush  of  my  rejection  — 
but  this  string  business,  with  everything  left 
hanging  in  the  air,  so  to  speak,  made  a  fel- 
low feel  like  thirty  cents. 

"  It  simply  means  that  I'm  engaged  and 
you  are  not,"  I  said. 

"  It's  nothing  of  the  kind,"  she  returned 
tearfully.  "  You're  as  free  as  free,  Ezra. 
You  can  go  away  this  moment,  and  never 
write,  or  anything ! " 

Her  lips  trembled  as  she  said  this,  and  I 
confess  it  gave  me  a  kind  of  savage  pleasure 
to  feel  that  it  was  still  in  my  power  to  hurt 
her. 

121 


JONES 

It  may  sound  unkind,  but  still  you  must 
admit  that  the  whole  situation  was  exasperat- 
ing. Here  was  five-foot-five  of  exquisite, 
blooming,  twenty-year-old  American  girlhood 
sending  away  the  man  she  confessed  to  care 
for,  because,  forsooth,  she  would  not  marry 
before  her  elder  sister!  I  always  thought  it 
was  beautiful  of  Freddy  (she  was  named 
Frederica,  you  know)  to  be  always  so  sweet 
and  tender  and  grateful  about  Eleanor;  but 
sometimes  gratitude  can  be  carried  altogether 
too  far,  even  if  you  are  an  orphan,  and  were 
brought  up  by  hand.  Eleanor  was  thirty- 
four  if  a  day  —  a  nice  enough  woman,  of 
course,  and  college  bred,  and  cultivated,  and 
clever  —  but  her  long  suit  wasn't  good  looks. 
She  was  tall  and  bony ;  worshiped  genius  and 
all  that;  and  played  the  violin. 

"  No,"  repeated  Freddy,  "  I  shall  never, 
never  marry  before  Eleanor.  It  would  mor- 
tify her  —  I  know  it  would  —  and  make  her 
feel  that  she  herself  had  failed.  She's  awful- 
ly frank  about  those  things,  Ezra  —  surpris- 
ingly frank.  I  don't  see  why  being  an  old 


JONES 

maid  is  always  supposed  to  be  so  funny,  do 
you?  It's  touching  and  tragic  in  a  woman 
who'd  like  to  marry  and  who  isn't  asked ! " 

"  But  Eleanor  must  have  had  heaps  of  of- 
fers," I  said,  "  surely  — " 

"  Just  one." 

"  Well,  one's  something,"  I  remarked  cheer- 
fully. "  Why  didn't  she  take  him  then?  " 

"  She  told  me  only  last  night  that  she  was 
sorry  she  hadn't !  " 

Here,  at  any  rate,  was  something  to  chew 
on.  I  saw  a  gleam  of  hope.  Why  shouldn't 
Eleanor  marry  the  only  one  —  and  make  us 
all  happy ! 

"  That  was  three  years  ago,"  said  Freddy. 

"  I  have  loved  you  for  four,"  I  retorted.  I 
was  cross  with  disappointment.  To  be 
dashed  to  the  ground,  you  know,  just  as  I  was 
beginning  —  "  Tell  me  some  more  about 
him,"  I  went  on.  I'm  a  plain  business  man 
and  hang  on  to  an  idea  like  a  bulldog ;  once  I 
get  my  teeth  in  they  stay  in,  for  all  you  may 
drag  at  me  and  wallop  me  with  an  umbrella 
—  metaphorically  speaking,  of  course. 


JONES 

"  Tell  me  his  name,  where  he  lives,  and  all." 

"  We  were  coming  back  from  Colorado,  and 
there  was  some  mistake  about  our  tickets. 
They  sold  our  Pullman  drawing-room  twice 
over  —  to  Doctor  Jones  and  his  mother,  and 
also  to  ourselves.  You  never  saw  such  a  fight 
—  and  that  led  to  our  making  friends,  and 
his  proposing  to  Eleanor !  " 

"  Then  why  in  Heaven's  name  didn't  she  " 
(it  was  on  the  tip  of  my  tongue  to  say  "  jump 
at  him")  "take  him?" 

"  She  said  she  couldn't  marry  a  man  who 
was  her  intellectual  inferior." 

"And  was  he?" 

"  Oh,  he  was  a  perfect  idiot  —  but  nice, 
and  all  that,  and  tremendously  in  love  with 
her.  Pity,  wasn't  it?  " 

"  The  obvious  thing  to  do  is  to  chase  him 
up  instantly.  Where  did  you  say  he  lived  ?  " 

"  His  mother  told  me  he  was  going  to  New 
York  to  practise  medicine." 

"  But  didn't  you  ever  hear  from  him  again? 
I  mean,  was  that  the  end  of  it  all  ?  " 

"  Yes." 

124 


JONES 

"  Then  you  don't  even  know  if  he  has  mar- 
ried since  ?  " 

"No!" 

"Nor  died?" 

"  No." 

"  Nor  anything  at  all?  " 

"  No." 

"  What  was  his  first  name  ?  " 

"  Wait  a  moment  ...  let  me  think 
yes,  it  was  Harry." 

"  Just  Harry  Jones,  then,  New  York 
City?" 

Freddy  laughed  forlornly. 

"  But  he  must  have  had  antecedents,"  I 
cried  out.  "  There  are  two  ways  of  doing 
this  Sherlock  Holmes  business  —  backward 
and  forward,  you  know.  Let's  take  Doctor 
Jones  backward.  As  they  say  in  post-office 
forms  —  what  was  his  place  of  origin?  " 

"  New  York  City." 

"  He  begins  there  and  ends  there,  does  he, 
then?" 

"  Yes." 

"  But  how  sure  are  you  that  Eleanor  would 

125 


JONES 

marry  him  if  I  did  manage  to  find  him  and 
bring  him  back  ?  " 

"  I'm  not  sure  at  all." 

"  No,  but  Freddy,  listen  —  it's  important. 
You  told  me  yourself  that  she  —  I  want  the 
very  identical  words  she  used." 

Freddy  reflected. 

"  She  said  she  was  almost  sorry  she  hadn't 
accepted  that  silly  doctor !  " 

"  That  doesn't  seem  much,  does  it  ?  "  I  re- 
marked gloomily. 

"  Oh,  from  Eleanor  it  does,  Ezra.  She 
said  it  quite  seriously.  She  always  hides  her 
feelings  under  a  veil  of  sarcastic  humor,  you 
know." 

"  You're  certainly  a  very  difficult  family 
to  marry,"  I  said. 

"  Being  an  orphan  — "  she  began. 

"  Well,  I'm  going  to  find  that  Jones  if 
I—!" 

"  Ezra,  dear  boy,  you're  crazy.  How 
could  you  think  for  a  moment  that  — " 

"  I'm  off,  little  girl.     Good-by !  " 

"  Wait  a  second,  Ezra ! " 

126 


JONES 

She  rose  and  went  into  the  next  room,  reap- 
pearing with  something  in  her  hand.  She 
was  crying  and  smiling  both  at  once.  I  took 
the  little  case  she  gave  me  —  it  was  like  one 
of  those  things  that  pen-knives  are  put  in  — 
and  looked  at  her  for  an  explanation. 

"  It's  the  h-h-hindleg  of  a  j-j -jack-rabbit," 
she  said,  "  shot  by  a  g-g-grave  at  the  f-f-full 
of  the  moon.  It's  supposed  to  be  1-1-lucky. 
It  was  given  to  me  by  a  naval  officer  who  got 
drowned.  It's  the  only  way  I  can  h-h-help 
you!" 

And  thus  equipped  I  started  bravely  for 
New  York. 


n 

In  the  directory  I  found  eleven  pages  of 
Joneses;  three  hundred  and  eighty-four 
Henry  Joneses;  and  (excluding  seventeen  den- 
tists) eighty-seven  Doctor  Henry  Joneses.  I 
asked  one  of  the  typists  in  the  office  to  copy 
out  the  list,  and  prepared  to  wade  in.  We 
were  on  the  eve  of  a  labor  war,  and  it  was 

9  127 


JONES 

exceedingly  difficult  for  me  to  get  away.  As 
the  managing  partner  of  Hodge  &  Westoby, 
boxers  (not  punching  boxers,  nor  China 
boxers,  but  just  plain  American  box-making 
boxers),  I  had  to  bear  the  brunt  of  the  whole 
affair,  and  had  about  as  much  spare  time  as 
you  could  heap  on  a  ten-cent  piece.  I  had 
to  be  firm,  conciliatory,  defiant  and  tactful  all 
at  once,  and  every  hour  I  took  off  for  Jonesing 
threatened  to  blow  the  business  sky-high.  It 
was  a  tight  place  and  no  mistake,  and  it  was 
simply  jack-rabbit  hindleg  luck  that  pulled 
me  through! 

My  first  Jones  was  a  hoary  old  rascal  above 
a  drug  store.  He  was  a  hard  man  to  get 
away  from,  and  made  such  a  fuss  about  my 
wasting  his  time  with  idle  questions  that  I 
flung  him  a  dollar  and  departed.  He  fol- 
lowed me  down  to  my  cab  and  insisted  on 
sticking  in  a  giant  bottle  of  his  Dog-Root 
Tonic.  I  dropped  it  overboard  a  few  blocks 
farther  on,  and  thought  that  was  the  end  of 
it  till  the  whole  street  began  to  yell  at  me,  and 
a  policeman  grabbed  my  horse,  while  a  street 

128 


JONES 

arab  darted  up  breathless  with  the  Dog-Root 
Tonic.  I  presented  it  to  him,  together  with 
a  quarter,  the  policeman  darkly  regarding  me 
as  an  incipient  madman. 

The  second  Jones  was  a  man  of  about 
thirty,  a  nice,  gentlemanly  fellow,  in  a  fine 
office.  I  have  usually  been  an  off-hand  man 
in  business,  accustomed  to  quick  decisions  and 
very  little  beating  about  the  bush.  But  I 
confess  I  was  rather  nonplussed  with  the 
second  Jones.  How  the  devil  was  I  to  be- 
gin? His  waiting-room  was  full  of  people, 
and  I  hardly  felt  entitled  to  sit  down  and  gas 
about  one  thing  and  the  other  till  the  chance 
offered  of  leading  up  to  the  Van  Coorts.  So 
I  said  I  had  some  queer,  shooting  sensations  in 
the  chest.  In  five  minutes  he  had  me  half- 
stripped  and  was  pounding  my  midriff  in. 
And  the  questions  that  man  asked!  He  be- 
gan with  my  grandparents,  roamed  through 
my  childhood  and  youth,  dissected  my  early 
manhood,  and  finally  came  down  to  coffee  and 
what  I  ate  for  breakfast. 

Then  it  was  my  turn. 

129 


JONES 

I  asked  him,  as  a  starter,  whether  he  had 
ever  been  in  Colorado? 

No,  he  hadn't. 

After  forty-five  minutes  of  being  ham- 
mered, and  stethoscoped,  and  punched,  and 
holding  my  breath  till  I  was  purple,  and  hop- 
ping on  one  leg,  he  said  I  was  a  very  obscure 
case  of  something  with  nine  syllables ! 

"  At  least,  I  won't  be  positive  with  one  ex- 
amination," he  said ;  "  but  kindly  come  to- 
morrow at  nine,  when  I  shall  be  more  at  leis- 
ure to  go  into  the  matter  thoroughly." 

I  paid  him  ten  dollars  and  went  sorrowful- 
ly away. 

The  third  Jones  was  too  old  to  be  my 
man;  so  was  the  fourth;  the  fifth  had  gone 
away  the  month  before,  leaving  no  address; 
the  sixth,  however,  was  younger  and  more 
promising.  I  thought  this  time  I'd  choose 
something  easier  than  pains  in  the  chest.  I 
changed  them  to  my  left  hand.  I  was  going 
to  keep  my  clothes  on,  anyhow.  But  it 
wasn't  any  use.  Off  they  came.  After  a 
decent  interval  of  thumping  and  grandfath- 

130 


JONES 

ers,  and  what  I  had  for  breakfast,  I  man- 
aged to  get  in  my  question: 

"Ever  in  Colorado,  Doctor?" 

"  Oh,  dear  me,  no !  " 

Another  ten  dollars,  and  nothing  accom- 
plished ! 

The  seventh  Jones  was  again  too  old;  the 
eighth  was  a  pale  hobbledehoy;  the  ninth 
was  a  loathsome  quack;  the  tenth  had  died 
that  morning;  the  eleventh  was  busy;  the 
twelfth  was  a  veterinary  surgeon;  the  thir- 
teenth was  an  intern  living  at  home  with 
his  widowed  sister.  Colorado?  No,  the 
widowed  sister  was  positive  he  had  never  been 
there.  The  fourteenth  was  a  handsome  fel- 
low of  about  thirty-five.  He  looked  poor  and 
threadbare,  and  I  had  a  glimpse  of  a  shabby 
bed  behind  a  screen.  Patients  obviously  did 
not  often  come  his  way,  and  his  joy  at  seeing 
me  was  pitiful.  I  had  meant  to  try  a  bluff 
and  get  in  my  Colorado  question  this  time 
free  of  charge;  but  I  hadn't  the  heart  to 
do  it.  Slight  pains  in  the  head  seemed  a  safe 
complaint. 

131 


JONES 

After  a  few  questions  he  said  he  would  have 
to  make  a  thorough  physical  examination. 

"No  clothes  off!"  I  protested. 

"  It's  essential,"  he  said,  and  went  on  with 
something  about  the  radio-activity  of  the 
brain,  and  the  vasomotor  centers.  The  word 
motor  made  me  feel  like  a  sick  automobile. 
I  begged  to  keep  my  clothes  on;  I  insisted; 
I  promised  to  come  to-morrow;  but  it  wasn't 
any  good,  and  in  a  few  minutes  he  was  hit- 
ting me  harder  than  either  of  the  two  before. 
Maybe  I  was  more  tender!  He  electrocuted 
me  extra  from  a  switchboard,  ran  red-hot 
needles  into  my  legs,  and  finally,  after  bang- 
ing me  around  the  room,  said  I  was  the 
strongest  and  wellest  man  who  had  ever  en- 
tered his  office. 

"  There's  a  lot  of  make-believe  in  medi- 
cine," he  said ;  "  but  I'm  one  of  those  poor 
devils  who  can't  help  telling  a  patient  the 
truth.  There's  nothing  whatever  the  matter 
with  you,  Mr.  Westoby,  except  that  your  skin 
has  a  slightly  abrased  look,  and  I  seem  to  no- 
tice an  abnormal  sensitiveness  to  touch." 


JONES 

"  Were  you  ever  in  Colorado,  Doctor  ?  "  I 
asked  while  he  was  good  enough  to  help  me 
»%to  my  shirt. 

"  Oh,  yes,  I  know  Colorado  well ! " 

My  heart  beat  high. 

"  Some  friends  of  mine  were  out  there  three 
years  ago,"  I  said.  "  Wouldn't  it  be  strange 
if  by  any  chance  the  Van  Coorts  —  " 

"  Oh,  I  left  Denver  when  I  was  fifteen." 

Five  dollars ! 

The  fifteenth  Jones  was  a  doctor  of  divin- 
ity; the  sixteenth  was  a  tapeworm  specialist; 
the  seventeenth  was  too  old,  the  eighteenth 
was  too  old,  the  nineteenth  was  too  old  —  a 
trio  of  disappointing  patriarchs.  The  twen- 
tieth painted  out  black  eyes;  the  twenty-first 
was  a  Russian  who  could  scarcely  speak  any 
English.  He  said  he  had  changed  his  name 
from  Karaforvochristophervitch  to  something 
more  suited  to  American  pronunciation.  He 
seemed  to  think  that  Jones  gave  him  a  better 
chance.  I  sincerely  hope  it  did.  He  told 
me  that  all  the  rest  of  the  Jones  family  was 
in  Siberia,  but  that  he  was  going  to  bomb 

133 


JONES 

them  out!  The  twenty-second  was  a  negro. 
The  twenty-third —  !  He  was  a  tall, 
youngish  man,  narrow-shouldered,  rather 
commonplace-looking,  with  beautiful  blue 
eyes,  and  a  timid,  winning,  deprecatory  man- 
ner. I  told  him  I  was  suffering  from  insom- 
nia. After  raking  over  my  grandfathers 
again  and  bringing  the  family  history  down 
by  stages  to  the  very  moment  I  was  shown 
into  his  office  he  said  he  should  have  to  ask 
me  to  undergo  a  thorough  physical  —  ! 
But  I  was  tired  of  being  slapped  and  punched 
and  breathed  on  and  prodded,  and  was  bold 
enough  to  refuse  point-blank.  I'd  rather 
have  the  insomnia!  We  worked  up  quite  a 
fuss  about  it,  for  there  was  something  tena- 
cious in  the  fellow,  for  all  his  mild,  kind,  gen- 
tle ways ;  and  I  had  all  I  could  do  to  get  off  by 
pleading  press  of  business.  But  I  wasn't  to 
escape  scot-free.  Medical  science  had  to  get 
even  somehow.  He  compromised  by  stinging 
my  eye  out  with  belladonna.  Have  you  ever 
had  belladonna  squirted  in  your  eye?  Well, 
don't! 

134 


JONES 

He  was  sitting  at  the  table,  writing  out 
some  cabalistic  wiggles  that  stood  for  bromide 
of  potassium,  when  I  remarked  casually  that 
it  was  strange  how  well  I  could  always  sleep 
in  Colorado. 

He  laid  down  the  pen  with  a  sigh. 

"  A  wonderful  state  —  Colorado,"  I  ob- 
served. 

"  To  me  it's  the  land  of  memories,"  he  said. 
"  Sad,  beautiful,  irrevocable  memories  —  try 
tea  for  breakfast  —  do  you  read  Browning  ? 
Then  you  will  remember  that  line :  *  Oh,  if 
I  — '  And  I  insist  on  your  giving  up  that 
cocktail  before  dinner." 

"  Some  very  dear  friends  of  mine  were  once 
in  Colorado,"  I  said.  "  Morristown  people 
—  the  Van  Coorts." 

"TheVanCoorts!" 

Doctor  Jones  sprang  from  his  chair,  his 
thin,  handsome  face  flushing  with  excitement. 

"  Do  you  mean  to  say  that  you  know  Elea- 
nor Van  Coort?  "  he  gasped. 

"  All  my  life." 

He  dropped  back  into  the  chair  again  and 

135 


JONES 

mumbled  something  about  cigars.  I  was 
only  to  have  blank  a  day.  In  his  perturba- 
tion I  believe  he  limited  me  to  a  daily  box. 
He  was  trying  —  and  trying  very  badly  —  to 
conceal  the  emotions  I  had  conjured  up. 

"  They  were  talking  about  you  only  yes- 
terday," I  went  on.  "  That  is,  if  it  was  you  1 
A  Pullman  drawing-room  —  " 

"  And  a  mistake  about  the  tickets,"  he 
broke  out.  "Yes,  yes,  it's  they  all  right. 
Talking  about  me,  did  you  say?  Did  Elea- 
nor —  I  mean,  did  Miss  Van  Coort  —  express 
— ?" 

"  She  was  wondering  how  she  could  find 
you,"  I  said.  "  You  see,  they're  busy  get- 
ting up  a  house-party  and  she  was  running 
over  her  men.  *  If  I  only  knew  where  that 
dear  Doctor  Jones  was,'  she  said,  and  then 
asked  me,  if  by  any  possible  chance  —  " 

His  fine  blue  eyes  were  glistening  with  all 
sorts  of  tender  thoughts.  It  was  really 
touching.  And  I  was  in  love  myself,  you 
know. 

"  So  she  has  remained  unmarried !  "  he  ex- 

136 


JONES 

claimed  softly.  "  Unmarried  —  after  all 
these  years ! " 

"  She's  a  very  popular  girl,"  I  said. 
"  She's  had  dozens  of  men  at  her  feet  —  but 
an  unfortunate  attachment,  something  that 
seems  to  go  back  to  about  three  years  ago,  has 
apparently  determined  her  to  stay  out  of  the 
game ! " 

Doctor  Jones  dropped  his  head  on  his  hands 
and  murmured  something  that  sounded  like 
"  Eleanor,  Eleanor ! "  Then  he  looked  up 
with  one  of  the  most  radiant  smiles  I  ever 
saw  on  a  man's  face.  "  I  hope  I'm  not  pre- 
suming on  a  very  short  acquaintance,"  he 
said,  "  but  the  fact  is  —  why  should  I  not  tell 
you  ?  —  Miss  Van  Coort  was  the  woman  in 
my  life!" 

I  explained  to  him  that  Freddy  was  the 
woman  in  mine. 

Then  you  ought  to  have  seen  us  fraternize ! 

In  twenty  minutes  I  had  him  almost  con- 
vinced that  Eleanor  had  loved  him  all  these 
years.  But  he  worried  a  lot  about  a  Mr. 
Wise  who  had  been  on  the  same  train,  and  a 

137 


JONES 

certain  Colonel  Hadow  who  had  also  paid 
Eleanor  attention.  Jones  was  a  great  fellow 
for  wanting  to  be  sure.  I  pooh-poohed  them 
out  of  the  way  and  gave  him  the  open  track. 
Then,  indeed,  the  clouds  rolled  away.  He 
beamed  with  joy.  In  his  rich  gush  of  friend- 
ship he  recurred  to  the  subject  of  my  in- 
somnia with  a  new-born  enthusiasm.  He  sub- 
divided all  my  symptoms.  He  dived  again 
into  my  physical  being.  He  consulted  Ger- 
man authorities.  I  squirmed  and  lied  and 
resisted  all  I  could,  but  he  said  he  owed  me 
an  eternal  debt  that  could  only  be  liquidated 
by  an  absolute  cure.  He  wanted  to  tie  me  up 
and  shoot  me  with  an  X-ray.  He  ordered 
me  to  wear  white  socks.  He  had  a  long,  ter- 
rifying look  at  a  drop  of  my  blood.  He 
jerked  hairs  out  of  my  head  to  sample  my 
nerve  force.  He  said  I  was  a  baffling  sub- 
ject, but  that  he  meant  to  make  me  well  if  it 
took  the  last  shot  in  the  scientific  locker. 
And  he  wound  up  at  last  by  refusing  point- 
blank  to  be  paid  a  cent ! 

I  waltzed  away  on  air  to  write  an  account 

138 


JONES 

of  the  whole  affair  to  Freddy,  and  dictate  a 
plan  of  operations.  I  was  justified  in  feeling 
proud  of  myself.  Most  men  would  have 
tamely  submitted  to  their  fate  instead  of  chas- 
ing up  all  the  Joneses  of  Jonesville !  Freddy 
sent  me  an  early  answer  —  a  gay,  happy, 
overflowing  little  note  —  telling  me  to  try 
and  engage  Doctor  Jones  for  a  three-day 
house-party  at  Morristown.  I  was  to  tele- 
graph when  he  could  come,  and  was  promised 
an  official  invitation  from  Mrs.  Matthewman. 
(She  was  the  aunt,  you  know,  that  they  lived 
with  —  one  of  those  old  porcelain  ladies  with 
a  lace  cap  and  a  rent-roll. )  However,  I  could 
not  do  anything  for  two  days,  for  we  had 
reached  a  crisis  in  the  labor  troubles,  and 
matters  were  approaching  the  breaking  point. 
We  were  threatened  with  one  of  those  "  sym- 
pathetic "  strikes  that  drive  business  men 
crazy.  There  was  no  question  at  issue  be- 
tween ourselves  and  our  employees;  but  the 
thing  ramified  off  somewhere  to  the  sugar 
vacuum-boiler  riveters'  union.  Finally  the 
S.  V.  B.  R.  U.  came  to  a  settlement  with  their 

139 


JONES 

bosses,  and  peace  was  permitted  to  descend 
on  Hodge  &  Westoby's. 

I  took  immediate  advantage  of  it  to  descend 
myself  on  Doctor  Jones.  He  received  me  with 
open  arms  and  an  insomniacal  outburst.  He 
had  been  reading  up ;  he  had  been  seeing  dis- 
tinguished confreres;  he  had  been  mastering 
the  subject  to  the  last  dot,  and  was  panting  to 
begin.  I  hated  to  dampen  such  friendship 
and  ardor  by  telling  him  that  I  had  complete- 
ly recovered.  Under  the  circumstances  it 
seemed  brutal  —  but  I  did  it.  The  poor  fel- 
low tried  to  argue  with  me,  but  I  insisted  that 
I  now  slept  like  a  top.  It  sounded  horribly 
ungrateful.  Here  I  was  spurning  the  treas- 
ures of  his  mind,  and  almost  insulting  him 
with  my  disgusting  good  health.  I  swerved 
off  to  the  house-party ;  Eleanor's  delight,  and 
BO  on;  Mrs.  Matthewman's  pending  invita- 
tion; the  hope  that  he  might  have  an  early 
date  free  — 

He  listened  to  it  all  in  silence,  walking 
restlessly  about  the  office,  his  blue  eyes  shining 
with  a  strange  light.  He  took  up  a  bronze 

140 


JONES 

paper-weight  and  gazed  at  it  with  an  inten- 
sity of  self-absorption. 

"  I  can't  go,"  he  said. 

"  Oh,  but  you  have  to,"  I  exclaimed. 

"  Mr.  Westoby,"  he  resumed,  "  I  was  fool- 
ish enough  to  back  a  friend's  credit  at  a  store 
here.  He  has  skipped  to  Minnesota,  and  I 
am  left  with  three  hundred  and  four  dollars 
and  seventy-five  cents  to  pay.  To  take  a 
three  days'  holiday  would  be  a  serious  mat- 
ter to  me  at  any  time,  but  at  this  moment 
it  is  impossible." 

I  gave  him  a  good  long  look.  He  didn't 
strike  me  as  a  borrowing  kind  of  man.  I 
should  probably  insult  him  by  volunteering. 
Was  there  ever  anything  so  unfortunate? 

"  I  can't  go,"  he  repeated  with  a  little 
choke. 

"  You  may  never  have  another  opportu- 
nity," I  said.  "  Eleanor  is  doing  a  thing  I 
should  never  have  expected  from  one  of  her 
proud  and  reserved  nature.  The  advances 
of  such  a  woman  —  " 

He  interrupted  me  with  a  groan. 

141 


JONES 

"  If  it  wasn't  for  my  mother  I'd  throw 
everything  to  the  winds  and  fly  to  her,"  he 
burst  out.  "  But  I  have  a  mother  —  a  saint- 
ed mother,  Mr.  Westoby  —  her  welfare  must 
always  be  my  first  consideration ! " 

"  Is  there  no  chance  of  anything  turning 
up  ?  "  I  said.  "  An  appendicitis  case  —  an 
outbreak  of  measles?  I  thought  there  was  a 
lot  of  scarlatina  just  now." 

He  shook  his  head  dejectedly. 

"  Doctor,"  I  began  again,  "  I  am  pretty 
well  fixed  myself.  I'm  blessed  with  an  income 
that  runs  to  five  figures.  If  all  goes  the  way 
it  should  we  shall  be  brothers-in-law  in  six 
months.  We  are  almost  relations.  Give  me 
the  privilege  of  taking  over  this  small  obliga- 
tion —  " 

I  never  saw  a  man  so  overcome.  My  pro- 
posal seemed  to  tear  the  poor  devil  to  pieces. 
When  he  spoke  his  voice  was  trembling. 

"  You  don't  know  what  it  means  to  me  to 
refuse,"  he  said.  "  My  self-respect  .  .  . 
my  —  my  .  .  ."  And  then  he  positively 
began  to  weep! 

142 


JONES 

"  You  said  three  hundred  and  four  dollars 
and  seventy-five  cents,  I  believe  ?  " 

He  waved  it  from  him  with  a  long,  lean 
hand. 

"  I  can  not  do  it,"  he  said ;  "  and,  for  God's 
sake,  don't  ask  me  to !  " 

I  argued  with  him  for  twenty  minutes;  I 
laid  the  question  before  him  in  a  million 
lights;  I  racked  him  with  a  picture  of  Elea- 
nor, so  deeply  hurt,  so  mortified,  that  in  her 
recklessness  and  despair  she  would  probably 
throw  herself  away  on  the  first  man  that  of- 
fered !  This  was  his  chance,  I  told  him ;  the 
one  chance  of  his  life;  he  was  letting  a  piece 
of  idiotic  pride  wreck  the  probable  happiness 
of  years.  He  agreed  with  me  with  moans  and 
weeps.  He  had  the  candor  of  a  child  and  the 
torrential  sentiment  of  a  German  musician. 
Three  hundred  and  four  dollars  and  seventy- 
five  cents  stood  between  him  and  eternal  bliss, 
and  yet  he  waved  my  pocketbook  from  him! 
And  all  the  while  I  saw  myself  losing  Freddy. 

I  went  away  with  his  "  No,  no,  no ! "  still 
ringing  in  my  ears. 

10  143 


JONES 

At  the  club  I  found  a  note  from  Freddy. 
She  pressed  me  to  lose  no  time.  Mrs.  Mat- 
thewman  was  talking  of  going  to  Europe, 
and  of  course  she  and  Eleanor  would  have  to 
accompany  her.  Eleanor,  she  said,  had 
ordered  two  new  gowns  and  had  brightened 
up  wonderfully.  "  Only  yesterday  she  told 
me  she  wished  that  silly  doctor  would  hurry 
up  and  come  —  and  that,  you  know,  from 
Eleanor  is  almost  a  declaration ! " 

Some  of  my  best  friends  happened  to  be  in 
the  club.  It  occurred  to  me  that  poor  Nevill 
was  diabetic,  and  that  Charley  Grossman  had 
been  boring  everybody  about  his  gout.  I 
buttonholed  them  both,  and  laid  my  unfor- 
tunate predicament  before  them.  I  said  I'd 
pay  all  the  expenses.  In  fact,  the  more  they 
could  make  it  cost  the  better  I'd  be  pleased. 

"What,"  roared  Nevill,  "put  myself  in 
the  hands  of  a  young  fool  so  that  he  may  fill 
his  empty  pockets  with  your  money !  Where 
do  7  come  in?  Good  heavens,  Westoby, 
you're  crazy!  Think  what  would  happen  to 
me  if  it  came  to  Doctor  Saltworthy's  ears? 

144 


JONES 

He'd  never  have  anything  more  to  do  with 
me!" 

Charley  Grossman  was  equally  rebellious 
and  unreasonable. 

"  I  guess  you've  never  had  the  gout,"  he 
said  grimly. 

"  But  Charley,  old  man,"  I  pleaded,  "  all 
that  you'd  have  to  do  would  be  to  let  him 
talk  to  you.  I  don't  ask  you  to  suffer  for 
it.  Just  pay  —  that's  all  —  pay  my 
money ! " 

"  I'm  awfully  easily  talked  into  things," 
said  Charley.  (There  was  never  such  a  mule 
on  the  Produce  Exchange. )  "  He'd  be  say- 
ing, '  Take  this  '  —  and  I'm  the  kind  of 
blankety -blank  fool  that  would  take  it !  " 

Then  I  did  a  mean  thing.  I  reminded 
Grossman  of  having  backed  some  bills  of  his 
—  big  bills,  too  —  at  a  time  when  it  was 
touch  and  go  whether  he'd  manage  to  keep 
his  head  above  water. 

"  Westoby,"  he  replied,  "  don't  think  that 
time  has  lessened  my  sense  of  that  obliga- 
tion. I'd  cut  off  my  right  hand  to  do  you  a 

145 


JONES 

good  turn.     But  for  heaven's  sake,  don't  ask 
me  to  monkey  with  my  gout! " 

The  best  I  could  get  out  of  him  was  the 
promise  of  an  anemic  servant-girl.  Nevill 
generously  threw  in  a  groom  with  varicose 
veins.  Small  contributions,  but  thankfully 
received. 

"  Now,  what  you  do,"  said  Nevill,  "  is  to  go 
round  right  off  and  interview  Bishop  Jordan. 
He  has  sick  people  to  burn ! " 

But  I  said  Jones  would  get  on  to  it  if  I 
deluged  him  with  the  misery  of  the  slums. 

"  That's  just  where  the  bishop  comes  in," 
said  Nevill.  "  There  isn't  a  man  more  in 
touch  with  the  saddest  kind  of  poverty  in 
New  York  —  the  decent,  clean,  shrinking 
poverty  that  hides  away  from  all  the  dead- 
head coffee  and  doughnuts.  If  I  was  in  your 
fix  I'd  fall  over  myself  to  reach  Jordan ! " 

"  Yes,  you  try  Jordan,"  said  Charley,  who, 
I'm  sure,  had  never  heard  of  him  before. 

"  Then  it's  me  for  Jordan,"  said  I. 

I  went  down  stairs  and  told  one  of  the 
bell-boys  to  look  up  the  address  in  the  tele- 

146 


JONES 

phone-book.  It  seemed  to  me  he  looked  pale, 
that  boy. 

"  Aren't  you  well,  Dan  ?  "  I  said. 

"  I  don't  know  what's  the  matter  with  me, 
sir.  I  guess  it  must  be  the  night  work." 

I  gave  him  a  five-dollar  bill  and  made  him 
write  down  1892  Eighth  Avenue  on  a  piece  of 
paper. 

"  You  go  and  see  Doctor  Jones  first  thing," 
I  said.  "  And  don't  mention  my  name,  nor 
spend  the  money  on  Her  Mad  Marriage" 

I  jumped  into  a  hansom  with  a  pleasant 
sense  that  I  was  beginning  to  make  the  fur 

fly- 

"  That's  a  horrible  cold  of  yours,  Cabby,"  I 
said  as  we  stopped  at  the  bishop's  door  and 
I  handed  him  up  a  dollar  bill.  "  That's  just 
the  kind  of  a  cold  that  makes  graveyards 
hum!" 

"  I  can't  shake  it  off,  sir,"  he  said  despond- 
ently. "  Try  what  I  can,  and  it's  never  no 
use!" 

"  There's  one  doctor  in  the  world  who  can 
cure  anything,"  I  said ;  "  Doctor  Henry 

147 


JONES 

Jones,  1892  Eighth  Avenue.  I  was  worse 
than  you  two  weeks  ago,  and  now  look  at  me ! 
Take  this  five  dollars,  and  for  heaven's  sake, 
man,  put  yourself  in  his  hands  quick." 

Bishop  Jordan  was  a  fine  type  of  modern 
clergyman.  He  was  broad-shouldered  men- 
tally as  well  as  physically,  and  he  brought  to 
philanthropic  work  the  thoroughness,  care, 
enthusiasm  and  capacity  that  would  have 
earned  him  a  fortune  in  business. 

"  Bishop,"  I  said,  "  I've  come  to  see  if  I 
can't  make  a  trade  with  you ! " 

He  raised  his  grizzled  eyebrows  and  gave 
me  a  very  searching  look. 

*'  A  trade,"  he  repeated  in  a  holding-back 
kind  of  tone,  as  though  wondering  what  the 
trap  was. 

"  Here's  a  check  for  one  thousand  dollars 
drawn  to  your  order,"  I  went  on.  "  And 
here's  the  address  of  Doctor  Henry  Jones, 
1892  Eighth  Avenue.  I  want  this  money  to 
reach  him  via  your  sick  people,  and  that 
without  my  name  being  known  or  at  all  sus- 
pected." 

148 


JONES 

"  May  I  not  ask  the  meaning  of  so  peculiar 
a  request  ?  " 

"  He's  hard  up,"  I  said,  "  and  I  want  to 
help  him.  It  occurred  to  me  that  I  might 
make  you  —  er  —  a  confederate  in  my  little 
game,  you  know." 

His  eyes  twinkled  as  he  slowly  folded  up 
my  check  and  put  it  in  his  pocket. 

"  I  don't  want  any  economy  about  it, 
Bishop,"  I  went  on.  "  I  don't  want  you  to 
make  the  best  use  of  it,  or  anything  of  that 
kind.  I  want  to  slap  it  into  Doctor  Jones' 
till,  and  slap  it  in  quick." 

"  Would  you  consider  two  weeks  — ?  " 

"  Oh,  one,  please !  " 

"  It  is  understood,  of  course,  that  this 
young  man  is  a  duly  qualified  and  capable 
physician,  and  that  in  the  event  of  my  finding 
it  otherwise  I  shall  be  at  liberty  to  direct 
your  check  to  other  uses  ?  " 

"  Oh,  I  can  answer  for  his  being  all  right, 
Bishop.  He's  thoroughly  up-to-date,  you 
know ;  does  the  X-ray  act ;  and  keeps  the  pace 
of  modern  science." 

149 


JONES 

"  You  say  you  can  answer  for  him,"  said 
the  bishop  genially.  "  Might  I  inquire  who 
you  .are  ?  " 

"  I'm  named  Westoby  —  Ezra  Westoby  — 
managing  partner  of  Hodge  &  Westoby, 
boxers." 

"  I  like  boxers,"  said  the  bishop  in  the  tone 
of  a  benediction,  rising  to  dismiss  me.  "  I 
like  one  thousand  dollar  checks,  too.  When 
you  have  any  more  to  spare  just  give  them 
a  fair  wind  in  this  direction ! " 

I  went  out  feeling  that  the  Episcopal 
Church  had  risen  fifty  per  cent,  in  my  es- 
teem. Bishops  like  that  would  make  a  suc- 
cess of  any  denomination.  I  like  to  see  a  fel- 
low who's  on  to  his  job. 

I  gave  Jones  a  week  to  grapple  with  the 
new  developments,  and  then  happened  along. 
The  anteroom  was  full,  and  there  was  a  queue 
down  the  street  like  a  line  of  music-loving 
citizens  waiting  to  hear  Patti.  Nice,  de- 
cent-looking people,  with  money  in  their 
hands.  (I  always  like  to  see  a  cash  business, 
idon't  you?)  I  guess  it  took  me  an  hour  to 

150 


JONES 

crowd  my  way  up  stairs,  and  even  then  I  had 
to  buy  a  man  out  of  the  line. 

Jones  was  carrying  off  the  boom  more  quiet- 
ly than  I  cared  about.  He  wore  a  curt,  snap- 
py air.  I  don't  know  why,  but  I  felt  mis- 
givings as  I  shook  hands  with  him. 

Of  course  I  commented  on  the  rush. 

"  The  Lord  only  knows  what's  happened 
to  my  practice,"  he  said.  "  The  blamed 
thing  has  gone  up  like  a  rocket.  It  seems  to 
me  there  must  be  a  great  wave  of  sickness 
passing  over  New  York  just  now." 

"  Everybody's  complaining,"  I  said. 

This  reminded  him  of  my  insomnia  till  I  cut 
him  short. 

"  What's  the  matter  with  our  going  down 
to  the  Van  Coorts'  from  Saturday  to  Tues- 
day," I  said.  "  They  haven't  given  up  the 
hope  of  seeing  you  there,  Doctor,  and  the 
thing's  still  open." 

Then  I  waited  for  him  to  jump  with  joy. 

He  didn't  jump  a  bit.  He  shook  his  head. 
He  distinctly  said  "  No." 

"  I  told  you  it  was  the  money  side  of  it 

151 


JONES 

that  bothered  me,"  he  explained.  "  So  it  was 
at  the  time,  for,  of  course,  I  couldn't  foresee 
that  my  practice  was  going  to  fill  the  street 
and  call  for  policemen  to  keep  order.  But, 
my  dear  Westoby,  after  giving  the  subject  a 
great  deal  of  consideration  I  have  come  to  the 
conclusion  that  it  would  be  too  painful  for  me 
to  revive  those  —  those  —  unhappy  emotions 
I  was  just  beginning  to  recover  from!" 

"  I  thought  you  loved  her !  "  I  exclaimed. 

"  That's  why  I've  determined  not  to  go," 
he  said.  "  I  have  outlived  one  refusal.  How 
do  I  know  I  have  the  strength,  the  determina- 
tion, the  hardihood  to  undergo  the  agonies 
of  another  ?  " 

It  seemed  a  feeble  remark  to  say  that  faint 
heart  never  won  fair  lady.  I  growled  it  out 
more  like  a  swear  than  anything  else.  I  was 
disgusted  with  the  chump. 

"  She's  the  star  above  me,"  he  said ;  "  and 
I  am  crushed  by  my  own  presumption.  Is 
there  any  such  fool  as  the  man  that  breaks 
his  heart  twice  for  the  impossible  ?  " 

"  But     it     isn't     impossible,"     I     cried. 

152 


JONES 

"  Hasn't  she  —  as  far  as  a  woman  can  — 
hasn't  she  called  you  back  to  her?  What 
more  do  you  expect  her  to  do?  A  woman's 
delicacy  forbids  her  screaming  for  a  man !  I 
think  Eleanor  has  already  gone  a  tremendous 
way  in  just  hinting  —  " 

"  You  may  be  right,"  he  said  pathetically ; 
"  but  then  you  may  also  be  wrong.  The  risk 
is  too  terrible  for  me  to  run.  It  will  com- 
fort me  all  my  life  to  think  that  perhap,:  she 
does  love  me  in  secret !  " 

"  Do  you  mean  to  say  you're  going  to  give 
it  all  up  ?  "  I  roared. 

"  You  needn't  get  so  warm  about  it,"  he 
returned.  "  After  all,  I  have  some  justifica- 
tion in  thinking  she  doesn't  care." 

"  What  on  earth  do  you  suppose  she  in- 
vited you  for,  then  ?  " 

"  Well,  it  would  be  different,"  he  said,  "  if 
I  had  a  note  from  her  —  a  flower  —  some  lit- 
tle tender  reminder  of  those  dear  old  dead 
days  in  the  Pullman !  " 

"  She's  saving  up  all  that  for  Morristown," 
I  said. 

153 


JONES 

For  the  first  time  in  our  acquaintance  Doc- 
tor Jones  looked  at  me  with  suspicion.  Hia 
blue  eyes  clouded.  He  was  growing  a  little 
restive  under  my  handling. 

"  You  seem  to  make  the  matter  a  very  per- 
sonal one,"  he  observed. 

"  Well,  I  love  Freddy,"  I  explained.  "  It 
naturally  brings  your  own  case  very  close  to 
me.  And  then  I  am  so  positive  that  you  love 
Eleanor  and  that  Eleanor  loves  you.  Put 
yourself  in  my  place,  Doctor !  Do  you  mean 
that  you'd  do  nothing  to  bring  two  such  no- 
ble hearts  together?  " 

He  seized  my  hand  and  wrung  it  effusively. 
He  really  did  love  Eleanor,  you  know.  The 
only  fault  with  him  was  his  being  so  darned 
humble  about  it.  He  was  eaten  up  with  a 
sense  of  his  own  inferiority.  And  yet  I  could 
see  he  was  just  tingling  to  go  to  Morristown. 
Of  course,  I  crowded  him  all  I  could,  but  the 
best  I  could  accomplish  was  his  promise 
to  "  think  it  over."  I  hated  to  leave  him 
wabbling,  but  patient,;  were  scuffling  at  the 
door  and  fighting  on  the  stairs. 

154 


JONES 

The  next  thing  I  did  was  to  get  Freddy  on 
the  long-distance  'phone. 

"  Freddy,"  I  said,  after  explaining  the 
situation,  "  you  must  get  Eleanor  to  telegraph 
to  him  direct !  " 

"  What's  the  good  of  asking  what  she  won't 
do  ?  "  bubbled  the  sweet  little  voice. 

"Can't  you  persuade  her?" 

"  I  know  she  won't  do  it !  " 

"  Then  you  must  forge  it,"  I  said  desper- 
ately. "  It  needn't  be  anything  red-hot,  you 
know.  But  something  tender  and  sincere: 
'  Shall  be  awfully  disappointed  if  you  don't 
come,'  or,  *  There  was  a  time  when  you  would 
not  have  failed  me ! '  " 

"  It's  impossible." 

"  Then  he  won't  budge  a  single  inch ! "  I 
replied. 

"Ezra?" 

"Darling!" 

"  Suppose  I  just  signed  the  telegram  Van 
Coort?" 

"The  very  thing!" 

"  If  he  misunderstood  it  —  I  mean  if  he 

155 


JONES 

thought  it  really  came  from  Eleanor  —  there 
couldn't  be  any  fuss  about  it  afterward,  could 
there?" 

"  And,  of  course,  you'll  send  the  official 
invitation  from  Mrs.  Matthewman  besides  ?  " 

"For  Saturday?" 

"Yes,  Saturday!" 

"  And  you'll  come  ?  " 

"  Just  watch  me !  " 

"  Ezra,  are  you  happy  ?  " 

"  That  depends  on  Jones." 

"  Oh,  isn't  it  exciting?  " 

"  I  have  the  ring  in  my  pocket  — " 

"  But  touch  wood,  won't  you?  " 

"Freddy?" 

«  Yes  —  " 

"  What's  the  matter  with  getting  some  for- 
get-me-nots and  mailing  them  to  Jones  in  an 
envelope  ?  " 

"All  right,  I'll  attend  to  it.  Eighteen 
ninety-two  Eighth  Avenue,  isn't  it?" 

"  Be  sure  it  is  forget-me-nots,  you  know. 
Don't  mix  up  the  language  of  flowers,  and 
send  him  one  that  says :  '  I'm  off  with  a 

156 


JONES 

handsomer  man,'  or,  *  You  needn't  come  round 
any  more ! ' ; 

"  Oh,  Ezra,  Eleanor  is  really  getting  quite 
worked  up ! " 

"So  am  I!" 

"  Wouldn't  it  be  perfectly  splendid  if  — 
Switch  off  quick,  here's  aunt  coming ! " 

"  Mayn't  I  even  say  I  love  you  ?  " 

"  I  daren't  say  it  back,  Ezra  —  she's  call- 
ing." 

"But  Jo  you?"       • 

"  Yes,  unfortunately  —  " 

"Why  unfortun— ?" 

Buzz-buzz-swizzleum-bux-bux ! —  Aunt  had 
cut  us  off.  However,  short  as  my  little  talk 
with  Freddy  had  been,  it  brightened  my 
whole  day. 

Late  the  same  afternoon,  I  went  back  to 
Doctor  Jones.  I  was  prepared  to  find  him 
uplifted,  but  I  hadn't  counted  on  his  being 
maudlin.  The  fellow  was  drunk,  positively 
drunk  —  with  happiness.  His  tongue  ran  on 
like  a  mill-stream.  I  had  to  sit  down  and 
have  the  whole  Pullman-car  episode  inflicted 

157 


JONES 

on  me  a  second  time.  I  was  shown  the  re- 
ceipt-slip. I  was  shown  the  telegram  from 
Eleanor.  I  was  shown  with  a  whoop  the 
forget-me-nots!  Then  he  was  going  on  Sat- 
urday ?  I  asked.  He  said  he  guessed  it  would 
take  an  earthquake  to  keep  him  away,  and  a 
pretty  big  earthquake,  too!  .  .  .  Oh,  it 
was  a  great  moment,  and  all  the  greater  be- 
cause I  was  tremendously  worked  up,  too.  I 
saw  Freddy  floating  before  me,  my  sweet,  girl- 
ish, darling  Freddy,  holding  out  her  arms 
.  .  .  while  Jones  gassed  and  gassed  and 
gassed.  . 

I  left  him  taking  phenacetin  for  his  head- 
ache. 


in 

The  house-party  had  grown  a  little  larger 
than  was  originally  intended.  On  Saturday 
night  we  sat  down  twelve  to  dinner.  Doctor 
Jones  and  I  shared  a  room  together,  and  I 
must  say  whatever  misgivings  I  might  have 
had  about  him  wore  away  very  quickly  on 

158 


JONES 

closer  acquaintance.  In  the  first  place  he 
looked  well  in  evening  dress,  carrying  himself 
with  a  sort  of  shy,  kind  air  that  became  him 
immensely.  At  table  he  developed  the  great- 
est of  conversational  gifts  —  that  of  the  ap- 
preciative and  intelligent  listener.  I  heard 
one  of  the  guests  asking  Eleanor  who  was 
that  charming  young  man.  Freddy  and  I 
hugged  each  other  (I  mean  metaphorically, 
of  course)  and  gloried  in  his  success.  In  the 
presence  of  an  admirer  (such  is  the  mystery 
of  women)  Eleanor  instantly  got  fifteen 
points  better  looking,  and  you  wouldn't  have 
known  her  for  the  same  girl.  Freddy 
thought  it  was  the  two-hundred-and-fifty- 
dollar  gown  she  wore,  but  I  could  see  it  was 
deeper  than  that.  She  was  thawing  in  the 
sunshine  of  love,  and  I'll  do  Doctor  Jones  the 
justice  to  say  that  he  didn't  hide  his  affection 
under  a  bushel.  It  was  generous  enough  for 
everybody  to  bask  in,  and  in  his  pell-mell  ar- 
dor he  took  us  all  to  his  bosom.  The  women 
loved  him  for  it,  and  entered  into  a  tacit  con- 
spiracy to  gain  him  the  right-of-way  to  wher- 

11  159 


JONES 

ever  Eleanor  was  to  be  found.  In  fact,  he 
followed  her  about  like  a  dog,  and  she  could 
scarcely  move  without  stepping  on  him. 

Sunday  was  even  better.  One  of  the  house- 
maids drank  some  wood  alcohol  by  mistake 
for  vichy  water,  and  the  resulting  uproar  re- 
dounded to  Jones'  coolness,  skill  and  despatch. 
He  dominated  the  situation  and  —  well,  I 
won't  describe  it,  this  not  being  a  medical 
work,  and  the  reader  probably  being  a  good 
guesser.  Mrs.  Matthewman  remarked  signifi- 
cantly that  it  must  be  nice  to  be  the  wife  of 
a  medical  man  —  one  would  always  have  the 
safe  feeling  of  a  doctor  at  hand  in  case  any- 
thing happened  at  night!  Eleanor  said  it 
was  a  beautiful  profession  that  had  for  its  ob- 
ject the  alleviation  of  human  pain.  Freddy 
jealously  tried  to  get  in  a  good  word  for 
boxers,  but  nobody  would  listen  to  her  except 
me.  It  was  all  Jones,  Jones,  Jones,  and  the 
triumphs  of  modern  medicine.  Altogether 
he  sailed  through  that  whole  day  with  flying 
colors,  first  with  the  housemaid,  and  then 
afterward  at  church,  where  he  was  the  only 

160 


JONES 

one  that  knew  what  Sunday  after  Epiphany 
it  was.  He  made  it  plainer  than  ever  that  he 
was  a  model  young  man  and  a  pattern.  Mrs. 
Matthewman  compared  him  to  her  departed 
husband,  and  talked  about  old-fashioned  cour- 
tesy and  the  splendid  men  of  her  youth. 
Everybody  fell  over  everybody  else  to  praise 
him.  It  was  a  regular  Jones  boom.  People 
began  to  write  down  his  address,  and  ask  him 
if  he'd  be  free  Thursday,  or  what  about  Fri- 
day, and  started  to  book  seats  in  advance. 

That  evening,  as  I  was  washing  my  hands 
before  dinner  and  cheerfully  whistling  Hia- 
watha, I  became  conscious  that  Jones  was  loll- 
ing back  on  a  sofa  at  the  dark  end  of  the 
room.  What  particularly  arrested  my  atten- 
tion was  a  groan  —  a  hollow,  reverberatory 
groan  —  preceded  by  a  pack  of  heartrending 
sighs.  It  worried  me  —  when  everything 
seemed  to  be  going  so  well.  He  had  every 
right  to  be  whistling  Hiawatha,  too. 

"  What's  the  matter,  Jones?  "  said  I. 

He  keeled  over  on  the  sofa,  and  groaned 
louder  than  ever. 

161 


JONES 

"  It  isn't  possible  —  that  she's  refused 
you  ?  "  I  exclaimed.  He  muttered  something 
about  his  mother. 

"  Well,  what  about  your  mother?  "  I  said. 

"  Westoby,"  he  returned,  "  I  guess  I  was 
the  worst  kind  of  fool  ever  to  put  my  foot  into 
this  house." 

That  was  nice  news,  wasn't  it?  Just  as  I 
was  settling  in  my  head  to  buy  that  Seventy- 
second  Street  place,  and  alter  the  basement 
into  a  garage! 

"  You  see,  old  man,  my  mother  would  never 
consent  to  my  marrying  Eleanor.  I'm  in  the 
position  of  having  to  choose  between  her  and 
the  woman  I  love.  And  I  owe  so  much  to  my 
mother,  Westoby.  She  stinted  herself  for 
years  to  get  me  through  college;  she  hardly 
had  enough  to  eat ;  she  ..."  Then  he 
groaned  a  lot  more. 

"  I  can't  think  that  your  mother  —  a 
mother  like  yours,  Jones  —  would  consent  to 
stand  between  you  and  your  lifelong  happi- 
ness. It's  morbid  —  that's  what  I  call  it  — 
morbid,  just  to  dream  of  such  a  thing." 

162 


JONES 

"  There's  Bertha,"  he  quavered. 

"  Great  Scott,  and  who's  Bertha  ?  " 

"  The  girl  my  mother  chose  for  me  two 
years  ago  —  Bertha  McNutt,  you  know. 
She'd  really  prefer  me  not  to  marry  at  all,  but 
if  I  must  —  it's  Bertha,  Westoby  —  Bertha 
or  nothing ! " 

"  It's  too  late  to  say  that  now,  old  fellow." 

"  It's  not  too  late  for  me  to  go  home  this 
very  night." 

"  Well,  Jones,"  I  broke  out,  "  I  can't  think 
you'd  do  such  a  caddish  thing  as  that.  Think 
it  over  for  a  minute.  You  come  down  here; 
you  sweep  that  unfortunate  girl  off  her  feet ; 
you  make  love  to  her  with  the  fury  of  a  stage 
villain ;  you  force  her  to  betray  her  very  evi- 
dent partiality  for  you  —  and  then  you  have 
the  effrontery  to  say :  '  Good-by.  I'm  off.' ' 

"  My  mother  —  "  he  began. 

"  You  simply  can  not  act  so  dishonorably, 
Jones." 

He  sat  silent  for  a  little  while. 

"  My  mother  — "  he  started  in  again 
finally. 

163 


JONES 

"  Surely  your  mother  loves  you  ?  "  I  de- 
manded. 

"  That's  the  terrible  part  of  it,  Westoby, 
she  —  " 

"Pooh!" 

"  She  stinted  herself  to  get  me  through 
col  —  " 

"Then  why  did  you  ever  come  here?" 

"  That's  just  the  question  I'm  asking  my- 
self now." 

"  I  don't  see  that  you  have  any  right  to 
assume  all  that  about  your  mother,  anyway. 
Eleanor  Van  Coort  is  a  woman  of  a  thousand 
—  unimpeachable  social  position  —  a  little 
fortune  of  her  own  —  accomplished,  hand- 
some, charming,  sought  after  —  why,  if  you 
managed  to  win  such  a  girl  as  that  your  moth- 
er would  walk  on  air." 

"  No,  she  wouldn't.     Bertha  —  " 

"  You're  a  pretty  cheap  lover,"  I  said.  "  I 
don't  set  up  to  be  a  little  tin  hero,  but  I'd 
go  through  fire  and  water  for  my  girl.  Good 
heavens,  love  is  love,  and  all  the  mothers  —  " 

He  let  out  a  few  more  groans. 

164 


JONES 

"  Then,  see  here,  Jones,"  I  went  on,  "  you 
owe  some  courtesy  to  our  hostesses.  If  you 
went  away  to-night  it  would  be  an  insult. 
Whatever  you  decide  to  do  later,  you've  sim- 
ply got  to  stay  here  till  Tuesday  morning ! " 

"  Must  I?  "  he  said,  in  the  tone  of  a  person 
who  is  ordered  not  to  leave  the  sinking  ship. 

"  A  gentleman  has  to,"  I  said. 

He  quavered  out  a  sort  of  acquiescence,  and 
then  asked  me  for  the  loan  of  a  white  tie.  I 
should  have  loved  to  give  him  a  bowstring  in- 
stead, with  somebody  who  knew  how  to  operate 
it.  He  was  a  fluff,  that  fellow  —  a  tarnation 
fluff! 


rv 

It  was  a  pretty  glum  evening  all  round. 
Most  of  them  thought  that  Jones  had  got  the 
chilly  mitt.  Eleanor  looked  pale  and  unde- 
cided, not  knowing  what  to  make  of  Jones' 
death's-head  face.  She  was  resentful  and 
pitying  in  turns,  and  I  saw  all  the  material 
lying  around  for  a  first-class  conflagration. 

165 


JONES 

Freddy  was  a  bit  down  on  me,  too,  saying 
that  a  smoother  method  would  have  ironed 
out  Jones,  and  that  I  had  been  headlong  and 
silly.  She  cried  over  it,  and  wouldn't  kiss  me 
in  the  dark ;  and  I  was  goaded  into  saying  — 
Well,  the  course  of  true  love  ran  in  bumps 
that  night.  There  was  only  one  redeeming 
circumstance,  and  that  was  my  managing  to 
keep  Jones  and  Eleanor  apart.  I  mean  that 
I  insisted  on  being  number  three  till  at  last 
poor  Eleanor  said  she  had  a  headache,  and 
forlornly  went  up  to  bed. 

Jones  was  still  asleep  when  I  got  up  the 
next  morning  at  six  and  dressed  myself  quiet- 
ly so  as  not  to  awake  him.  It  was  now  Mon- 
day, and  you  can  see  for  yourself  there  was 
no  time  to  spare.  I  gave  the  butler  a  dollar, 
and  ordered  him  to  say  that  unexpected  busi- 
ness had  called  me  away  without  warning, 
but  that  I  should  be  back  by  luncheon.  I 
rather  overdid  the  earliness  of  it  all.  At 
least,  I  hove  off  1892  Eighth  Avenue  at  eight- 
fifteen  \.  M.  I  loitered  about;  looked  at 
pawnshop  windows;  gave  a  careful  examina- 

166 


JONES 

tion  to  a  forty-eight-dollars-ninety-eight- 
cent  complete  outfit  for  a  four-room  flat ;  had 
a  chat  with  a  policeman;  assisted  at  a  run- 
away; advanced  a  nickel  to  a  colored  gentle- 
man in  distress;  had  my  shoes  shined  by 
another ;  helped  a  child  catch  an  escaped  par- 
rot—  and  still  it  wasn't  nine!  Idleness  is  a 
grinding  occupation,  especially  on  Eighth 
Avenue  in  the  morning. 

Mrs.  Jones  was  a  thin,  straight-backed, 
brisk  old  lady,  with  a  keen  tongue,  and  a 
Yankee  faculty  for  coming  to  the  point.  I 
besought  her  indulgence,  and  laid  the  whole 
Eleanor  matter  before  her  —  at  least,  as  much 
of  it  as  seemed  wise.  I  appeared  in  the  role 
of  her  son's  warmest  admirer  and  best  friend. 

"  Surely  you  won't  let  Harry  ruin  his  life 
from  a  mistaken  sense  of  his  duty  to  you  ?  " 

"Duty,  fiddlesticks!"  said  she.  "He's 
going  to  marry  Bertha  McNutt !  " 

"  But  he  doesn't  want  to  marry  Bertha  Mc- 
Nutt!" 

"  Then  he  needn't  marry  anybody." 

She  seemed  to  think  this  a  triumphant  an- 

167 


JONES 

swer.  Indeed,  in  some  ways  I  must  confess 
it  was.  But  still  I  persevered. 

"  It  puts  me  out  to  have  him  shilly-shally- 
ing around  like  this,"  she  said.  "  I'll  give 
him  a  good  talking  to  when  he  gets  back. 
This  other  arrangement  has  been  understood 
between  Mrs.  McNutt  and  myself  for  years." 

She  was  an  irritating  person.  I  found  it 
not  a  little  difficult  to  keep  my  temper  with 
her.  It's  easier  to  fight  dragons  than  to 
temporize  with  them  and  appeal  to  their  bet- 
ter nature.  I  appealed  and  appealed.  She 
watched  me  with  the  same  air  of  interested 
detachment  that  one  gives  to  a  squirrel  revolv- 
ing in  a  cage.  I  could  feel  that  she  was  flat- 
tered; her  sense  of  power  was  agreeably  tic- 
kled; my  earnestness  and  despair  enhanced 
the  zest  of  her  reiterated  refusals.  I  was  a 
very  nice  young  man,  but  her  son  was  going 
to  marry  Bertha  McNutt  or  marry  nobody! 

Then  I  tried  to  draw  a  lurid  picture  of  his 
revolt  from  her  apron-strings. 

"  Oh,  Harry's  a  good  boy,"  she  said. 
"  You  can't  make  me  believe  that  two  days 

168 


JONES 

has  altered  his  whole  character.  I'll  answer 
for  his  doing  what  I  want." 

I  felt  a  precisely  similar  conviction,  and  my 
heart  sank  into  my  shoes. 

At  this  moment  there  was  a  tap  at  the  door, 
and  another  old  lady  bounced  in.  She  was 
stout,  jolly-looking  and  effusive.  The  greet- 
ings between  the  pair  were  warm,  and  they 
were  evidently  old  friends.  But  underneath 
the  new-comer's  gush  and  noise  I  was  dimly 
conscious  of  a  sort  of  gay  hostility.  She  was 
exultant  and  frightened,  both  at  once,  and 
her  eyes  were  sparkling. 

"  Well,  what  do  you  think?  "  she  cried  out, 
explosively. 

Mrs.  Jones'  lips  tightened.  There  was  a 
mean  streak  in  that  old  woman.  I  could  see 
she  was  feeling  for  her  little  hatchet,  and  was 
getting  out  her  little  gun. 

"Bertha!"  exploded  the  old  lady. 
"Bertha  —  " 

(Mysterious  mental  processes  at  once  in- 
formed me  that  this  was  none  other  than 
Bertha's  mother.) 

169 


JONES 

Mrs.  Jones  was  coolly  taking  aim.  I  was 
reminded  of  that  old  military  dictum :  "  Don't 
shoot  till  you  see  the  whites  of  their  eyes !  " 

"  Bertha,"  vociferated  the  old  lady  fierce- 
ly — "  Bertha  has  been  secretly  married 
to  Mr.  Stuffenhammer  for  the  last  three 
months ! " 

Another  series  of  kinematographic  mental 
processes  informed  me  that  Mr.  Stuffenham- 
mer was  an  immense  catch. 

"  Twenty  thousand  dollars  a  year,  and  her 
own  carriage,"  continued  Mrs.  McNutt  gloat- 
ingly. "  You  could  have  knocked  me  down 
with  a  feather.  Bertha  is  such  a  considerate 
child;  she  insisted  on  marrying  secretly  so 
that  she  could  tone  it  down  by  degrees  to  poor 
Harry;  though  there  was  no  engagement  or 
anything  like  that,  she  could  not  help  feel- 
ing of  course  that  she  owed  it  to  the  dear 
boy  to  gradually  —  " 

Mrs.  Jones  never  turned  a  hair  or  moved  a 
muscle. 

"  You  needn't  pity  Harry,"  she  said. 
"  I've  just  got  the  good  news  that  he's  en- 

170 


JONES 


gaged  to  one  of  the  sweetest  and  richest  girls 
in  Morristown." 

I  jumped  for  my  hat  and  ran. 


You  never  saw  anybody  so  electrified  as 
Jones.  For  a  good  minute  he  couldn't  even 
speak.  It  was  like  bringing  a  horseback  re- 
prieve to  the  hero  on  the  stage.  He  repeated 
"  Stuff enhammer,  Stuffenhammer,"  in  tones 
that  Henry  Irving  might  have  envied,  while  I 
gently  undid  the  noose  around  his  neck.  I 
led  him  under  a  tree  and  told  him  to  buck  up. 
He  did  so  —  slowly  and  surely  —  and  then 
began  to  ask  me  agitated  questions  about  pro- 
posing. He  deferred  to  me  as  though  I  had 
spent  my  whole  life  Bluebearding  through  the 
social  system.  He  wanted  to  be  coached  how 
to  do  it,  you  know.  I  told  him  to  rip  out 
the  words  —  any  old  words  —  and  then  kiss 
her. 

"  Don't  let  there  be  any  embarrassing 
pause,"  I  said.  "  A  girl  hates  pauses." 

171 


JONES 

"  It  seems  a  great  liberty,"  he  returned. 
"  It  doesn't  strike  me  as  r-r-respectful." 

"You  try  it,"  I  said.  "It's  the  only 
way." 

"  I'll  be  glad  when  it's  over,"  he  remarked 
dreamily. 

"  Whatever  you  do,  keep  clear  of  set 
speeches,"  I  went  on.  "  Blurt  it  out,  no  mat- 
ter how  badly  —  but  with  all  the  fire  and 
ginger  in  you." 

He  gazed  at  me  like  a  dead  calf. 

"  Here  goes,"  he  said,  and  started  on  a 
trembling  walk  toward  the  house. 

I  don't  know  whether  he  was  afraid,  or 
didn't  get  the  chance,  or  what  it  was;  but  at 
any  rate  the  afternoon  wore  on  without  the 
least  sign  of  his  coming  to  time.  I  kept  tab 
on  him  as  well  as  I  could  —  checkers  with  Miss 
Drayton  —  half  an  hour  writing  letters  —  a 
long  talk  with  the  major  —  and  finally  his 
getting  lost  altogether  in  the  shrubbery  with 
an  old  lady.  Freddy  said  the  suspense  was 
killing  her,  and  was  terribly  despondent  and 
miserable.  I  couldn't  interest  her  in  the  Sev- 

172 


JONES 

enty-second  Street  house  at  all.  She  asked 
what  was  the  good  of  working  and  worrying, 
and  figuring  and  making  lists  —  when  in  all 
probability  it  would  be  another  girl  that  would 
live  there.  She  had  an  awfully  mean  opinion 
of  my  constancy,  and  was  intolerably  philo- 
sophical and  Oh-I-wouldn't-blame-you-the- 
least-  little  -  bit-  if-  you  -  did-  go  -  off-  and-marry- 
somebody-else !  She  took  a  pathetic  pleasure 
in  loving  me,  losing  me,  and  then  weeping  over 
the  dear  dead  memory.  She  said  nobody  ever 
got  what  they  wanted,  anyway ;  and  might  she 
come,  when  she  was  old  and  ugly  and  faded 
and  weary,  to  take  care  of  my  children  and 
be  a  sort  of  dear  old  aunty  in  the  Seventy- 
second  Street  house.  I  said  certainly  not,  and 
we  had  a  fight  right  away. 

As  we  were  dressing  for  dinner  that  night  I 
took  Jones  to  task,  and  tried  to  stiffen  him 
up.  I  guess  I  must  have  mismanaged  it 
somehow,  for  he  said  he'd  thank  me  to  keep 
my  paws  out  of  his  affairs,  and  then  went  into 
the  bath-room,  where  he  shaved  and  growled 
for  ten  whole  minutes.  I  itched  to  throw  a 

173 


JONES 

bootjack  at  him,  but  compromised  on  doing 
a  little  growling  myself.  Afterward  we  got 
into  our  clothes  in  silence,  and  as  he  went 
out  first  he  slammed  the  door. 

It  was  a  disheartening  evening.  We  played 
progressive  euchre  for  a  silly  prize,  and  we  all 
got  shuffled  up  wrong  and  had  to  stay  so. 
Then  the  major  did  amateur  conjuring  till 
we  nearly  died.  I  was  thankful  to  sneak  out- 
of-doors  and  smoke  a  cigar  under  the  star- 
light. I  walked  up  and  down,  consigning 
Jones  to  —  well,  where  I  thought  he  belonged. 
I  thought  of  the  time  I  had  wasted  over  the 
fellow  —  the  good  money  —  the  hopes  —  I 
was  savage  with  disappointment,  and  when  I 
heard  Freddy  softly  calling  me  from  the  ver- 
anda I  zigzagged  away  through  the  trees  to- 
ward the  lodge  gate.  There  are  moments 
when  a  man  is  better  left  alone.  Besides,  I 
was  in  one  of  those  self-tormenting  humors 
when  it  is  a  positive  pleasure  to  pile  on  the 
agony.  When  you're  eighty-eight  per  cent, 
miserable  it's  hell  not  to  reach  par.  I  was 
sore  all  over,  and  I  wanted  the  balm  —  the 

174 


JONES 

consolation  —  to  be  found  in  the  company  of 
those  cold  old  stars,  who  have  looked  down 
in  their  time  on  such  countless  generations  of 
human  asses.  It  gave  me  a  wonderful  sense 
of  fellowship  with  the  past  and  future. 

I  was  reflecting  on  what  an  infinitesimal 
speck  I  was  in  the  general  scheme  of  things, 
when  I  heard  the  footfall  of  another  human 
speck,  stumbling  through  the  dark  and  car- 
rying a  dress-suit  case.  It  was  Jones  him- 
self, outward  bound,  and  doing  five  knots  an 
hour.  I  was  after  him  in  a  second,  doing  six. 

"  Jones !  "  I  cried. 

He  never  even  turned  round. 

I  grabbed  him  by  the  arm.  He  wasn't  go- 
ing to  walk  away  from  me  like  that. 

"  Where  are  you  going  ?  "  I  demanded. 

"  Home ! " 

"  But  say,  stop ;  you  can't  do  that.  It's 
too  darned  rude.  We  don't  break  up  till  to- 
morrow." 

"  I'm  breaking  up  now,"  he  said. 

"But  —  " 

"  Let  go  my  arm  — !  " 

12  175 


JONES 

"  Oh,  but,  my  dear  chap  —  "I  began. 

"  Don't  you  dear  chap  me ! " 

We  strode  on  in  silence.  Even  his  back 
looked  sullen,  and  his  face  under  the  gas- 
lights — 

"  Westoby,"  he  broke  out  suddenly,  "  if 
there's  one  thing  I'm  sensitive  about  it  is  my 
name.  Slap  me  in  the  face,  turn  the  hose  on 
me,  rip  the  coat  off  my  back  —  and  you'd  be 
astounded  by  my  mildness.  But  when  it 
comes  to  my  name  I  —  I'm  a  tiger !  " 

"  A  tiger,"  I  repeated  encouragingly. 

"  It  all  went  swimmingly,"  he  continued  in 
a  tone  of  angry  confidence.  "  For  five  sec- 
onds I  was  the  happiest  man  in  the  United 
States.  I  —  I  did  everything  you  said,  you 
know,  and  I  was  dumfounded  at  my  own  suc- 
cess. S-s-she  loves  me,  Westoby." 

I  gazed  inquiringly  at  the  dress-suit  case. 

"  We  don't  belong  to  any  common  Joneses. 
We're  Connecticut  Joneses.  In  fact,  we're 
the  only  Joneses  —  and  the  name  is  as  dear  to 
me,  as  sacred,  as  I  suppose  that  of  Westoby 
is,  perhaps,  to  you.  And  yet  —  and  yet  — 

176 


JONES 

'do  you  know  what  she  actually  said  to  me? 
Said  to  me,  holding  my  hand,  and,  and  — 
that  the  only  thing  she  didn't  like  about  me 
was  my  name." 

I  contrived  to  get  out,  "  Good  heavens ! " 
with  the  proper  astonishment. 

"  I  told  her  that  Van  Coort  didn't  strike 
me  as  being  anything  very  extra." 

"  Wouldn't  it  have  been  wiser  to — ?  " 

"  Oh,  for  myself,  I'd  do  anything  in  the 
world  for  her.  But  a  fellow  has  to  show  a 
little  decent  pride.  A  fellow  owes  something 
to  his  family,  doesn't  he?  As  a  man  I  love 
the  ground  she  walks  on ;  as  a  Jones  —  well, 
if  she  feels  like  that  about  it  —  I  told  her  she 
had  better  wait  for  a  De  Montmorency." 

"  But  she  didn't  say  she  wouldn't  marry 
you,  did  she?  " 

"N-o-o-o!" 

"  She  didn't  ask  you  to  change  your  name, 
did  she?" 

"  N-o-o-o ! " 

"  And  do  you  mean  to  say  that  just  for  one 
unfortunate  remark  —  a  remark  that  any  one 

177 


JONES 

might  have  made  in  the  agitation  of  the  mo- 
ment —  you're  deliberately  turning  your  back 
on  her,  and  her  broken  heart ! " 

"  Oh,  she's  red-hot,  too,  you  know,  over 
what  I  said  about  the  Van  Coorts." 

"  She  couldn't  have  realized  that  you  be- 
longed to  the  Connecticut  Joneses.  I  didn't 
know  it.  /  — " 

"  Well,  it's  aU  off  now,"  he  said. 

It  was  a  mile  to  the  depot.  For  Jones  it 
was  a  mile  of  reproaches,  scoldings,  lectures 
and  insults.  For  myself  I  shall  ever  remem- 
ber it  as  the  mile  of  my  life.  I  pleaded, 
argued,  extenuated  and  explained.  My  life- 
long happiness  —  Freddy  —  the  Seventy- 
second  Street  house  —  were  walking  away 
from  me  in  the  dark  while  I  jerked  unavail- 
ingly  at  Jones'  coat-tails.  The  whole  outfit 
disappeared  into  a  car,  leaving  me  on  the  plat- 
form with  the  ashes  of  my  hopes.  Of  all  ob- 
stinate, mulish,  pig-headed,  copper-riveted  — 

I  was  lucky  enough  to  find  Eleanor  crying 
softly  to  herself  in  a  corner  of  the  veranda. 
The  sight  of  her  tears  revived  my  fainting 

178 


JONES 

courage.  I  thought  of  Bruce  and  the  spider, 
and  waded  in. 

"  Eleanor,"  I  said,  "  I've  just  been  seeing 
poor  Jones  off." 

She  sobbed  out  something  to  the  effect  that 
she  didn't  care. 

"  No,  you  can't  care  very  much,"  I  said, 
"  or  you  wouldn't  send  a  man  like  that  —  a 
splendid  fellow  —  a  member  of  one  of  the 
oldest  and  proudest  families  of  Connecticut  — 
to  his  death." 

"Death?" 

"  Well,  he's  off  for  Japan  to-morrow. 
They're  getting  through  fifty  doctors  a 
week  out  there  at  the  front.  They're  shot 
down  faster  than  they  can  set  them  up." 

I  was  unprepared  for  the  effect  of  this  on 
Eleanor.  For  two  cents  she  would  have 
fainted  then  and  there.  It's  awful  to  hear 
a  woman  moan,  and  clench  her  teeth,  and  pant 
for  breath. 

"  Oh,  Eleanor,  can't  you  do  anything?  " 

"  I  am  helpless,  Ezra.  My  pride  —  my 
woman's  pride — " 

179 


JONES 

"  Oh,  how  can  you  let  such  trifles  stand  be- 
tween you?  Think  of  him  out  there,  in  his 
tattered  Japanese  uniform  —  so  far  from 
home,  so  lonely,  so  heartbroken  —  standing 
undaunted  in  that  rain  of  steel,  while  — 

"  Oh,  Ezra,  stop !  I  can't  bear  it !  I  can't 
bear  it ! " 

"  Is  the  love  of  three  years  to  be  thrown 
aside  like  an  old  glove,  just  because  — 

Her  face  was  so  wild  and  strained  that  the 
lies  froze  upon  my  tongue. 

"  Oh,  Ezra,  I  could  follow  him  barefooted 
through  the  snow  if  only  he  — " 

"  He's  leaving  Grand  Central  to-morrow  at 
ten  forty-five,"  I  said. 

She  fumbled  at  her  neck,  and  almost  tore 
away  the  diamond  locket  that  reposed  there. 

"  Take  him  this,"  she  whispered  hoarsely. 
"  Take  it  to  him  at  once,  and  say  I  sent  it. 
Say  that  I  beg  him  to  return  —  that  my 
pride  crumbles  at  the  thought  of  his  going 
away  so  far  into  danger." 

I  put  the  locket  carefully  into  my  pocket. 

"  And,  Eleanor,  try  and  don't  rub  him  the 

180 


JONES 

wrong  way  about  his  name.  Is  it  worth 
while  ?  There  have  to  be  Joneses,  you  know." 

"  Tell  him,"  she  burst  out,  "  tell  him  —  oh, 
I  never  meant  to  wound  him  —  truly,  I  didn't 
a  name  that's  good  enough  for 
him  is  good  enough  for  me !  " 

The  next  morning  at  nine  I  pulled  up  my 
Porcher-Mufflin  car  before  Jones'  door.  He 
was  sitting  at  his  table  reading  a  book,  and 
he  made  no  motion  to  rise  as  I  came  in.  He 
gave  me  a  pale,  expressionless  stare  instead, 
such  as  an  ancient  Christian  might  have  worn 
when  the  call-boy  told  him  the  lions  were  ready 
in  the  Colosseum.  Resignation,  obstinacy 
and  defiance  —  all  nicely  blended  under  a 
turn-the-other-cheek  exterior.  He  looked  woe- 
begone, and  his  thin,  handsome  face  betrayed 
a  sleepless  night  and  a  breakfastless  morning. 
I  could  feel  that  my  presence  was  the  last 
straw  to  this  unfortunate  medical  camel. 

I  threw  in  a  genial  remark  about  the 
weather,  and  took  a  seat. 

Jones  hunched  himself  together,  and 
squirmed  a  sad  little  squirm. 

181 


JONES 

"  Mr.  Westoby,"  he  said,  "  I  once  made  use 
of  a  very  strong  expression  in  regard  to  you. 
I  said,  if  you  remember,  that  I'd  be  obliged 
if  you'd  keep  your  paws  — " 

"  Don't  apologize,"  I  interrupted.  "  I 
forgot  it  long  ago." 

"  You've  taken  me  up  wrong,"  he  continued 
drearily.  "  I  should  like  you  to  consider  the 
remark  repeated  now.  Yes,  sir,  repeated." 

"  Oh,  bosh !  "  I  exclaimed. 

"  You  have  a  very  tough  epidermis,"  he 
went  on.  "  Quite  the  toughest  epidermis  I 
have  met  with  in  my  whole  professional 
career.  A  paper  adequately  treating  your 
epidermis  would  make  a  sensation  before  any 
medical  society." 

Somehow  I  couldn't  feel  properly  insulted. 
The  whole  business  struck  me  as  irresistibly 
comical.  I  lay  back  in  my  chair  —  my  unin- 
vited chair  —  and  roared  with  laughter. 

I  couldn't  forbear  asking  him  what  treat- 
ment he'd  recommend. 

He  pointed  to  the  door,  and  said  laconical- 
ly: "Fresh  air." 

182 


JONES 

I  retorted  by  laying  the  diamond  locket 
before  him. 

"  My  dear  fellow,"  I  said,  as  he  gazed  at 
it  transfixed,  "  don't  let  us  go  on  like  a  pair 
of  fools.  Eleanor  charged  me  to  give  you 
this,  and  beg  you  to  return." 

I  don't  believe  he  heard  me  at  all.  That 
flashing  trinket  was  far  more  eloquent  than 
any  words  of  mine.  He  laid  his  head  in  his 
hands  beside  it,  and  his  whole  body  trembled 
with  emotion.  He  trembled  and  trembled, 
till  finally  I  got  tired  of  waiting.  I  poked 
him  in  the  back,  and  reminded  him  that  my 
car  was  waiting  down  stairs.  He  rose  with 
a  strange,  bewildered  air,  and  submitted  like 
a  child  to  be  led  into  the  street.  He  had  the 
locket  clenched  in  his  hand,  and  every  now 
and  then  he  would  glance  at  it  as  though  un- 
able to  believe  his  eyes.  I  shut  him  into  the 
tonneau,  and  took  a  seat  beside  my  chauffeur. 

"  Let  her  out,  James,"  I  said. 

James  let  her  out  with  a  vengeance.  There 
was  a  sunny-haired  housemaid  at  the  Van 
Coorts'  .  .  .  and  it  was  a  crack,  new 

183 


JONES 

four-cylinder  car  with  a  direct  drive  on  the 
top  speed.  Off  we  went  like  the  wind,  j  ounc- 
ing  poor  Jones  around  the  tonneau  like  a  pea 
in  a  pill-box.  But  he  didn't  care.  Was  he 
not  seraphically  whizzing  through  space, 
obeying  the  diamond  telegram  of  love?  In 
the  general  whizzle  and  bang  of  the  whole  per- 
formance he  even  ventured  to  raise  his  voice 
in  song,  and  I  could  overhear  him  behind  me, 
adding  a  lyrical  finish  to  the  hum  of  the  ma- 
chinery. It  was  a  walloping  run,  and  we  only 
throttled  down  on  the  outskirts  of  Morristown. 
You  see  I  had  to  coach  him  about  that  Jap- 
anese war  business,  or  else  there  might  be 
trouble!  So  I  leaned  over  the  back  seat  and 
gently  broke  it  to  him.  I  thought  I  had  man- 
aged it  rather  well.  I  felt  sure  he  could  un- 
derstand, I  said,  the  absolute  need  of  a  little 
—  embellishing  and  — 

"  Let  me  out,"  he  said. 

I  feverishly  went  on  explaining. 

"  If  you  don't  let  me  out  I'll  climb  out," 
he  said,  and  began  to  make  as  good  as  his 
word  over  the  tonneau. 

184 


JONES 

Of  course,  there  was  nothing  for  it  but  to 
stop  the  car. 

Jones  deliberately  descended  and  headed 
for  New  York. 

I  ran  after  him,  while  the  chauffeur  turned 
the  car  round  and  slowly  followed  us  both. 
It  was  a  queer  procession.  First  Jones,  then 
I,  then  the  car. 

Finally  I  overtook  him. 

"  Jones,"  I  panted.     "  Jones." 

He  muttered  something  about  Ananias,  and 
speeded  up. 

"But  it  was  an  awfully  tight  place,"  I 
pleaded.  "  Something  had  to  be  done ;  you 
must  make  allowances;  it  was  the  first  thing 
that  came  into  my  head  —  and  you  must  ad- 
mit that  it  worked,  Jones.  Didn't  she  send 
you  the  locket  ?  Didn't  she  —  ?  " 

"  What  a  prancing,  show-off,  matinee  fool 
you've  made  me  look ! "  he  burst  out.  "  I 
have  an  old  mother  to  support.  I  have  an 
increasing  practice.  I  have  already  attracted 
some  little  attention  in  my  chosen  field  —  eye, 
ear  and  throat.  A  nice  figure  I'd  cut,  traips- 

185 


JONES 

ing  around  battle-fields  in  a  kimono,  and 
looking  for  a  kindly  bullet  to  lay  me  low.  If 
I  were  ever  tempted  by  such  a  thing  —  which 
God  forbid  —  wouldn't  I  prefer  to  spread 
bacilli  on  buttered  toast?  " 

"  I  never  thought  of  that,"  I  said  humbly. 

"  I  have  known  retail  liars,"  he  went  on. 
"But  I  guess  you  are  the  only  wholesaler  in 
the  business.  When  other  people  are  content 
with  ones  and  twos  you  get  them  out  in 
grosses,  packed  for  export ! " 

He  went  on  slamming  me  like  this  for  miles. 
Anybody  else  would  have  given  him  up  as 
hopeless.  I  don't  want  to  praise  myself,  but 
if  I  have  one  good  quality  it's  staying  power. 
I  pleaded  and  argued,  and  expostulated  and 
explained,  with  the  determination  of  a  man 
whose  back  is  to  the  wall.  I  wasn't  going  to 
lose  Freddy  so  long  as  there  was  breath  in 
my  body.  However,  it  wasn't  the  least  good 
in  the  world.  Jones  was  as  impervious  as 
sole-leather,  and  as  unshaken  as  a  marble 
pillar. 

Then  I  played  my  last  card. 

186 


JONES 

I  told  him  the  truth !  Not  the  whole  truth, 
of  course,  but  within  ten  per  cent,  of  it. 
About  Freddy,  you  know,  and  how  she  was 
determined  not  to  marry  before  her  elder 
sister,  and  how  Eleanor's  only  preference 
seemed  to  be  for  him,  and  how  with  such  a 
slender  clue  to  work  on  I  had  engineered 
everything  up  to  this  point. 

"  If  I  have  seemed  to  you  intolerably  pry- 
ing and  officious,"  I  said,  "  well,  at  any  rate, 
Jones,  there's  my  excuse.  It  rests  with  you 
to  give  me  Freddy  or  take  her  from  me. 
Turn  back,  and  you'll  make  me  the  happiest 
man  alive ;  go  forward,  and  —  and  —  " 

I  watched  him  out  of  the  corner  of  my 
eye. 

His  tread  lost  some  of  its  elasticity.  He 
was  short-circuiting  inside.  Positively  he  be- 
gan to  look  sort  of  sympathetic  and  human. 

"  Westoby,"  he  said  at  last,  in  a  voice  al- 
most of  awe,  "  when  they  get  up  another 
world's  fair  you  must  have  a  building  to  your- 
self. You're  colossal,  that's  what  you  are ! " 

"  I'm  only  in  love,"  I  said. 

187 


JONES 

"  Well,  that's  the  love  that  moves  moun- 
tains," he  said.  "  If  anybody  had  told  me 
that  I  should  .  .  ."  He  stopped  irreso- 
lutely on  the  word. 

"  Oh,  to  think  I  have  to  stand  for  all  that 
rot!  "he  bleated. 

I  was  too  wise  to  say  a  word.  I  simply 
motioned  James  to  switch  the  car  around  and 
back  up.  I  shooed  Jones  into  the  tonneau 
and  turned  the  knob  on  him.  He  snuggled 
back  in  the  cushions,  and  smiled  —  yes,  smiled 

—  with  a  beautiful,  blue-eyed,  far-away,  in- 
dulgent   expression    that    warmed    me    like 
spring  sunshine.     Not  that  I  felt  absolutely 
safe  even  yet  —  of  course  I  couldn't  —  but 
still  — 

We  ran  into  Freddy  and  Eleanor  at  the 
lodge  gates.  I  had  already  telephoned  the 
former  to  expect  us,  so  as  to  have  everything 
fall  out  naturally  when  the  time  came.  We 
stopped  the  car,  and  descended  —  Jones  and  I 

—  and  he  walked  straight  off  with  Eleanor, 
while  I  side-stepped  with  Freddy. 

She  and  I  were  almost  too  excited  to  talk. 

188 


JONES 


It  was  now  or  never,  you  know,  and  there  was 
an  awfully  solemn  look  about  both  their  backs 
that  was  either  reassuring  or  alarming  —  we 
couldn't  decide  quite  which.  Freddy  and 
I  simply  held  our  breath  and  waited. 

Finally,  after  an  age,  Jones  and  Eleanor 
turned,  still  close  in  talk,  still  solemn  and 
enigmatical,  and  drew  toward  us  very  slowly 
and  deliberately.  When  they  had  got  quite 
close,  and  the  tension  was  at  the  breaking 
point,  Eleanor  suddenly  made  a  little  rush, 
and,  with  a  loud  sob,  threw  her  arms  round 
Freddy's  neck. 

Jones  fidgeted  nervously  about,  and  seemed 
lo  quail  under  my  questioning  eyes.  It  was 
impossible  to  tell  whether  things  had  gone 
right  or  not.  I  waited  for  him  to  speak  .  .  . 
I  saw  words  forming  themselves  hesitatingly 
on  his  lips  ...  he  bent  toward  me  quite 
confidentially  .  .  . 

"  Say,  old  man,"  he  whispered,  "  is  there 
any  place  around  here  where  a  fellow  can  buy 
an  engagement  ring?" 

189 


FAMOUS  AUTHORS  AND  THEIR  BOOKS 
INCLUDED  IN  THIS  SERIES 


ECCENTRIC  MR.  CLARK 

By  JAMES  WH1TCOMB  RILEY 

Author  of  "An  Old  Sweeihcatt  of  Mine,"  etc. 

THE  PRINCESS  ELOPES 

By    HAROLD     MacGRATH 

Author  of  "  The  Man  on  the  Box,"  etc. 

AS  THE  HEART  PANTETH 

By    HALLIE    ERMINIE    RIVES 
Author  of  "The  Valiant*  of  Virginia,"  etc. 

ROSALYNDE'S  LOVERS 

By    MAURICE    THOMPSON 

Author  of  "Alice  of  Old  Vincennes,"  etc. 

THE  HOUSE  IN  THE  MIST 

By    ANNA    KATHARINE    GREEN 

Author  of  "The  Leaoenworth  Case,"  etc. 

TROLLEY  FOLLY 

By    HENRY    WALLACE    PHILLIPS 

Author  of  "Red  Sounders,"  etc. 

MOTORMANIACS 

By    LLOYD    OSBOURNE 

Author  of  "A  Petion  of  Some  Importance,"  etc. 

THE  FIFTH  STRING 

By    JOHN    PHILIP    SOUSA 

Author  of  "  Pipetouin  Sandu,"  etc. 

CHIMES  FROM  A  JESTER'S  BELLS 

By    ROBERT    J.  BURDETTE 

Author  of  " Old  Time  and  Young  Tom,"  etc. 

A  GUEST  AT  THE  LUDLOW 

By    BILL    NYE 

Author  of  "Baled  Hay,"  etc. 

FOUR  IN  FAMILY 

By    FLORIDA    POPE    SUMERWELL 

A  FOOL  FOR  LOVE 

By    FRANCIS    LYNDE 

Author  of  "The  Grafters,"  etc. 


A    00012745- 


